Short story time
They met at the wake for her horse-god father, a party full of people dressed in black, swirling and dancing in circles around a girl who’s long hair fell like a veil trying to hide her face from their curious and impious stares. They eddied around him too, Apollo’s oldest son, who stood in the midst of their dark, cold winter party, giving off heat like a flame, burning. He watched her, they all watched her, the tiny girl in the black dress, seeming to vanish from sight the longer they looked; but he was the only one who could see the broken heart she held in her hands, the shattered remains of a once perfect vessel, filled to it’s brim with love and hope, and the dreams that young women carry. He made them laugh, the cold souls that fluttered and flickered around her, never really seeing her; and she never saw him, didn’t hear the words he spoke to her before she left for her father’s castle beside the ocean, the one he had built for her nymph mother when she decided to forgo the sea to love him.
He followed her there, brought her friends to her, nymphs and young gods like him, loud and raucous in their attempts to bring her smile back. They turned her quiet castle into their congregating place, never leaving her alone, day or night. They slept in her bed with her and followed her from place to place, tending to her when she grew sick or tired. He seduced her, coaxed her from the cold darkness of the winter sea where she had thought and dreamed of staying; for in the sea, she didn’t feel loss, didn’t feel pain, she was only free. But he stood on the shores of her ocean and called her, and the warmth in his smile and in his eyes were enough to tempt her from the sea.
He became her lover and held her in arms warm from the sun, his kisses lighting the spark in the cold empty place where her heart had been. He told her stories about wild horses and sang to her and played his guitar, teaching her to laugh again. At night he held her against the desire to rejoin the sea, and when they made love it was like running through a field of flowers in the early summer, just hot enough that it stung along the back of her neck, and the smell of trampled hay and wild flowers filling her nose and her mouth, and all she wanted was him. Her mother mourned the loss of her horse-god husband, and returned to the sea, for a nymph without her lover is like a ship without an anchor, and must drift with the tides.
He became her reason to stay, the warm sun in her winter, and beneath his warmth and his touch she begin to bloom again, and the green of her eyes was no longer the cool jade they had become, but the balmy lagoon water in which they laughed and swam and were together. As the pieces of her heart begin to seek one another and to heal, she offered more of herself to him, her stories and her dreams, and he saved and remembered each one like they were burnished and glowing idols on his shelves. He showed her magic, and in return she showed him love like a tempest, like a summer storm, warm rain and dark, humid nights.
He held her through the winter, but as summer came and her heart remade itself, she begin to long to see the world, to see what it offered. She traveled then, leaving his side for a weekend to see the desert, it’s dry bleached beauty offering a place for the moon and the cacti to waltz. She left him for a week to see the islands, a lush tropical paradise where she swam with the sea turtles and felt close to her Nereid mother. The ocean there was warm and soft and surrounded her the way her sun god lover surrounded her, with peace. She left him for months to see the colored trees and high, perfect mountains in the east, and she danced in the gold and scarlet of the trees that let go their leaves to hear her laughter; she watched the moon and the stars dance and glimmer in their cool, unchanging beauty.
She returned to him each time, full of stories and images of the places that she’d been, and when they held one another, each touch was another story that she’d saved up to share with him. She could begin to feel her heart beat again, and when she lay in his arms at night, she told him ‘It beats for you, I live for you’ but although he swore he loved her, would always love her, she was never sure.
Her journeys away became longer; she left her castle by the sea in the west and went to a cabin in the mountains in the east, and lived in the snow. She was fascinated by the snow flakes that caught on her lips and eye lashes, and she often caught sight of the snow goddess who danced from place to place, just out of the corner of your eye. She returned to him each time, satiated with the blue white silver and the green pine needles, and although he swore he loved her, would always love her, she was never sure.
She left the mountains for the desert, for a house made of the dreams of the coyotes and buffalo that once walked there. She danced with the moon and the cactus god, and she wore dresses made from butterfly wings and summer breezes and burned the black silks and satins she had wrapped herself in for so long. She bloomed, and gathered around her the nymphs and younger gods and her court became their gathering place, and her smile and her laughter became the things of myths.
And she returned to her sun god love, and she told him stories of the places she’d seen and the people she’s loved and he held her like before and he loved her, fierce and hot like fire biting along her skin, she held and loved him like a tidal wave, and when it was over she lay quiet in his arms, the calm after the storm. But every time she left, and every time she came back she begin to see that there was a reason that a sun god and a sea goddess could never love forever, the storms between them grew larger, longer, threatening to tear them both apart.
She gave him one last chance, begged him to leave the west and go with her, anywhere. Her gypsy soul had returned at last, and she longed to see the rest of the world. But the sun god had found the valley where his soul was at peace, and although he swore he loved her, that he would always love her, he swore he would never leave his valley. She left him for another ocean, and made her home near it’s cooler waves. She often stood at it’s banks and called him, hoping that he would hear her from his valley in the west and come for her, but he never did. And although he swore he loved her, would always love her, she could never go back to the valley of the sun, and although she missed him, her heart was finally hers alone, and she was at peace.
So, that's a new one, hot out of my head. Let me know what you think!