Circa 805 AD, England
The Greek ways had long been assimilated into those usurper Romans, and then forgotten. This new "Holy Roman Empire" was nothing like what Erebos had seen at the time of Creation, or in the Golden Age in Greece
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The answer to the question was that she was alive and happy and very, very well. The answer to the question was to tell him of all the things she was seeing and experiencing, to share her enthusiasm for creatures and palaces and fabrics that didn't exist in Greece or Rome or England at all.
But she didn't give these answers to the question, because they weren't answers that he wanted to hear. Not really. Instead she said,
"I'm well." It was uncommon for her not to include some term of endearment; a "love," "my husband," or most commonly, simply "my Ere." But it seemed inappropriate - or at least, he didn't seem as though he would appreciate it at the moment.
Instead, she took a sip of her wine and a drag of her cigarette, and said,
"You have a guest." The surprise of having spoken that aloud registered for a brief moment on her face. Surely her mind had told her mouth to ask, "How are you," or to say, "I've missed you," but instead, her traitorous lips drew attention to who was in the bedroom, and why she seemed to be bleeding.
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Pulling out a chair for Nyx to sit in at his small wooden table, he sat down himself, placing the glass on the surface of the wood.
"Yes," he said, his voice pitched deliberately low so as not to wake the one in the other room. "She needed someone."
Nyx wouldn't like that.
Erebos took a long drag of the cigarette his wife brought him, then brushed a leaf of tobacco off his lip. He cast a look over his shoulder toward the separating curtain, then back at Nyx.
"Surely you're not jealous."
He knew she was, or was getting there.
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"Jealous," she said with a softness that was neither sweet nor safe. "Would that make you feel better?"
She shook her head, holding herself back. This was not why she'd come here.
"Well," she began again, coolly, evenly, pleasantly, "you've always done well with women who've needed you."
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"I seem to attract those types," he said, smiling for her, letting her guess how many women had been attracted to him in the past without her knowing. His voice matched her tone perfectly. Even. Pleasant. Was that mocking?
He ran his hand through his hair, then dropped it into his lap again, calmly.
"Tell me how you've filled your days and nights, Nyx," he said, by way of conversation.
He knew what she would have to say in answer, and that was exactly his point. How could she be jealous because he picked up a little pet to put back together?
Because she was Nyx, the one love of his immortal life.
He hated her so much, sometimes.
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"Do you?" she asked, referring to the types he attracted. She swallowed the bile in her throat, the hundreds of cutting, cruel remarks she could make. Age had taught her restraint, but had also made her considerably more sharp.
Nyx looked away from her husband at his question. This, always this. He would never understand - never understand what it was to be in someone's thrall; his thrall, to love someone so much but to need to be free.
Darkness was unbound by time, space, or even Night, as he knew.
She finally took the offered seat, but still didn't meet his gaze; instead, she looked toward the curtain.
"You will be angry with me forever, you will spite me forever, because you cannot understand that the way I've filled my days and nights has nothing to do with you and me."
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She was avoiding looking at him. That would not do. She would face this.
Reaching out to her from across the table, he captured her dainty chin in his calloused hand and turned her face toward him. Meeting and holding her gaze, he spoke slowly and clearly.
"What makes you think I am not trying to now?"
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"What makes me think that you are not trying to understand?" she shook her chin free of his grasp, but not breaking eye contact. "The fact that you treat me more coldly than a stranger; that I can feel the anger roll off of you at all hours; that you relish the possibility of being able to do something to hurt me," she said bluntly.
"You don't understand, and you don't want to understand. You want but to own me, to have me, as you always have, and to punish me for not being what you want me to."
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"Nonsense. I don't talk to strangers at all."
That wasn't exactly true. The girl in his bed was a stranger. Did mortals count? He decided that they did not.
But if they did not, then why...?
His wife was being such a woman.
He stood from the table and walked away, stopping at the window and staring out into the blue-black sky. Utterly still, he shoved past his initial reaction to her words -- a flat out denial of her assessment -- and made himself consider what she accused him of. At the very least, he knew that this was what she believed of him, or wanted to believe. Whether it was true or not made little difference; this was how Nyx was perceiving it to be.
He sighed, irritated. He didn't want to tip his hand, but it would seem that it was the best thing to do. So, without a word, he walked back to Nyx, pulled her chair away from the table without waiting for her to stand, then drew her up with his hands.
"Do not make a sound," he cautioned, guiding her quickly toward his bedroom.
When he lifted the curtains aside and revealed the mortal in his bed, it was quite clear what had happened to her. Whispering in Nyx' ear, he said, "I did not do this to her."
He let Nyx look for a moment or two, then dropped the curtain back into place and turned her around again. After that, he let her do what she wanted. He again retreated to the window.
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Violence was universal, and Nyx had found it in all forms all over the world. It was difficult not to become accustomed, to become at least a little jaded. But such sights still affected Nyx, who refused to become hardened in that way. Such sights here, where she could at least be unguarded from mortal perils and savagery, affected her even more deeply.
Nyx had never known such brutality first hand; nothing like this. Even had she not been able to prevent such an eventuality herself, Erebos would have eagerly eviscerated anyone who might have tried.
"I did not do this to her." Her head snapped up, her expression a bit horrified. She walked over to him, and tentatively slipped her arms around his waist from behind.
"Of course you didn't, you foolish beast," she said, the gentleness of her tone softening the reprimand of her words.
She leaned her head against his back, closing her eyes. She didn't understand why Mother had made her as she was - why she couldn't be content, why she couldn't simply stay, and make Ere happy. He was so good, really, for all his coldness and harshness at times.
"I am sorry," she said very, very softly. "Please don't hate me."
Please understand.
She left that unspoken.
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