was up to and if this Psyche dared try to get her hooks in him, I would kill her.
In the most violent and hateful of ways.
I smirked, feeling better already.
Eros
“Very nice,” a sly, devil may care voice broke through my musings.
I twirled, for some reason I’d expected to see mother even though the voice had been a male.
To my surprise it was Dionysus who stood before me, leaning slightly against a pillar of my home. Legs crossed at the ankles, dressed in a fashion that was lightyears ahead of the time we currently inhabited.
My right brow lifted high up on my forehead. “Uncle? This is an unexpected surprise.”
He snorted, pushing off the pillar and brushed at invisible lint on his hunter green dinner jacket. “Must I have a reason for visiting my favorite nephew?”
I narrowed my eyes, not trusting his innocuous expression. “No. But why are you really here?”
He chuckled, before looking around the palace I’d taken great pains to build with my own hand’s day and night. I’d found the perfect location, hidden in a perpetual bank of low lying clouds coming in from the coast.
The palace was simple. Not as opulent as the ones upon Olympus. It was not hewn of gold, or silver, pearls, or whatever else the gods fancied. It was built of the very stone of this land. But my attention to detail was absolute. And I had managed a trade with the local sea witch. A harmless love spell for a pile of her best sea glass. From it I’d begun creating an elaborate splash mosaic. It was not yet done. I had the image in my head, but not much yet in the way of work. Dionysus found me now sitting amidst the pile of polished glass.
Carefully, I moved the pieces I had on my lap, making sure to keep the colors separated. It’d been the devil organizing the over ten thousand pieces last night, and I stood.
“Nice palace, my boy.” He said, staring up at the domed ceiling that rose twenty feet above us, then at the pitch covered torches flickering upon the walls. Then his bright eyes met mine. “If one didn’t know better, one might actually believe you intended to take up residence here.”
My heart gave a stutter and I automatically shook my head. “I am here but for a time.”
He snorted. “Right. Well, good to know.”
I swear, for a god of the drink and revelry Dionysus was surprisingly astute at seeing the truth beneath the surface.
Swiping a hand across my sweaty brow, I gave him innocent eyes. “Well, Uncle?”
“Ah yes,” he smirked, “my real reason for visiting. You were right, of course.” He walked ever so slightly closer. His dark hair was combed back, his olive complexion bright and not sallow like it was when he’d been too long in his drink. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever seen him as sober as he’d been the past few times, I’d seen him.
“Do you know, Eros,” he said lazily as he traced the lines of one of my own paintings. It was of the monster Medusa. A monster I felt tremendous sympathy for. What Athena had allowed to happen to her made me sick to my stomach.
I’d encountered the vivacious Medusa when she’d been but a girl of five. She’d had wings then, just like me. I’d often flown alongside her, invisible, cloaked in my shadows, but she’d always seemed aware of my presence. Laughing and giggling, even speaking to me a time or two. And I would play along, because I’d liked her. She’d had a sweet soul. Even though I’d seen the mark of the gods upon her, and had known in my heart her end would be a terrible one and there wasn’t a thing I could do to stop it, I’d still felt drawn to her.
But her curse had come as I’d always known it would and our flights had stopped and I hadn’t seen her for many years after that. Not until I’d learned of Athena’s wrath against such an innocent. I’d gone to Medusa, to do what I still wasn’t sure.
But she’d been greatly changed. To look into her eyes now would have been the end of me. My heart had shattered that day for the innocent girl she’d been, for the caprice of the gods, and I’d burned with hatred against my own kind. But I was not my father, I did not have the power to stop any of them. The most