It was hard to watch her and know that this was what she had become.
Where was his littleNyxie?
When she did not return to the cult, he felt hopeful. She would call now. She found what she needed. She would call him. He waited.
He waited.
He waited.
The darkness had become less intense in those days, those days of hopeful waiting... but it became apparent that she would not call for him. She wasn't going to call.
It was then that the Black Death descended over Europe, taking lovers and tearing them apart. Then families. Then friends. Everyone. Everyone. He liked it, that virus that refused to die. He preserved it, allowed it to hide within him and breed, and released it when he lifted away.
But despite burying himself in his work (and his recreational activities), he could still feel every movement of Her. She moved inside him, whether she wanted to realize it or not, and it made him ache.
He couldn't have stayed with her when he last saw her; it would not have helped anything. It would have dismissed those things that needed to be discussed. But he hadn't been able to discuss those things, at that moment, not then. He was too raw, and she was too raw, and it would not have ended pleasantly.
It didn't end pleasantly anyway. Nothing that he did seemed to matter. While he felt that he could speak with her about it now, perhaps she couldn't. She avoided him as often as she could, even though he had not been in tangible form since he left her at her order.
But that didn't mean that she didn't avoid him.
He understood enough to understand where he wasn't wanted.
He did not go to her, as much as he wanted to see her. He would not go. It was she who sent him away, and he was clear as to what would make it apparent when she wanted him again.
Sleeping at night was a practice which she hadn't quite yet mastered, and when something was amiss with any of her children, it was almost impossible.
It was Philotes.
Crying?
Philotes didn't cry. Philotes was quite possibly the most easygoing, happy-go-lucky of her children - which one wouldn't generally think was saying much, but it actually was.
No matter how hard-hearted Nyx might have become toward the rest of the world, she still couldn't turn away from one of her children in pain - much less one of the children who was least likely to have brought it upon herself. Night pulled a silk robe from the air that wrapped around her. She didn't bother to bind her hair or pay much attention to anything else.
Appearing before her daughter in her customary shower of midnight blue sparks, she said more gently than anyone had heard her in a very long time,
She felt his presence before she heard his voice, and her entire body stiffened. She did not turn to look at him. She did not acknowledge his presence at all. What she did do was look at her daughter for a long, long moment.
Philotes looked guilty. "Hullo, Mum. Hullo, Dad."
"Am I to assume," Nyx said softly, keeping an icy grip on her temper, "that you brought me here in the hope of some kind of reconciliation, Philotes?"
Philotes cringed. She had never quite heard her mother sound like that before.
But this was ridiculous. Mum and Dad had never spent this much time apart. Not even close. Not even a little. Even when she was out with the Asian cultists, they hadn't been all silent and awful.
Until Whatever Happened.
Then there was just nothing. Nothing at all.
They'd been mad at each other before, but this was just... wrong. After the first decade, things had gotten a bit itchy. By the end of the first fifty years, a couple of her siblings and she had started to get really worried.
By this point?
Somebody had to do something.
The spirit swallowed, putting on the best smile she could given her mother's glare (which she'd never had the honor of enjoying before),
"Um. Well. You know."
Nyx was not smiling.
"Yes, Mum," Philotes said quickly, then looked to Erebos for support.
He cringed at Nyx' harsh tone with Philotes. Philotes was probably pretty upset about her parents' enstrangement, especially considering their daughter's own nature.
Gently, he rested his hand on her shoulder, in silent support. He didn't think that this had been the best way to go about getting him and Nyx in the same room together -- it felt pretty damned deceitful, really -- but now that she'd done it...
....he couldn't say that he minded. Even angry, Nyx was beautiful. He'd forgotten....
He'd forgotten how good it was to be in her presence. Even if she was angry.
He should be angry too, but he wasn't. He missed her. He'd missed her before all of this happened, and now all he wanted to do was ...
He took his hand from Philotes' shoulder, after squeezing it subtuly. He hoped his daughter wasn't affecting him.
But no. No, even without touching her shoulder, he still wanted to run over to Nyx and grab her up and hold her forever.
And it was quite clear that he would not be allowed to do that.
But he could at least try to do....something.
"Hello, Nyx," he said. He didn't dare to hope that she would respond. She wouldn't even look at him.
Nyx was keeping admirable control of her temper. Philotes' deception was underhanded, out of line, and infuriating.
The children didn't understand. They didn't understand because they didn't know what had happened. Which was just as Nyx liked it, really, because she wasn't all that pleased that she herself knew what had occurred so many years ago with Erebos, let alone having the children be aware of it.
But he'd spoken to her. Said hello. She wanted to ignore him.
No, no actually she wanted to slap him. Hard. Or strike him. Or smite him.
The vehement violence of her thoughts took even her aback.
But she did none of these, and there was no external indication that she wanted to, other than a very, very subtle twitch of her jaw.
"Hello, Erebos," she said formally, as though to a business acquaintence.
She did not look at him. She would not look at him, she would not give him even the slightest crack to slip through.
Oh, no. Not today.
She continued to look at her daughter, awaiting some semblance of an explanation before she simply left.
Philotes tried not to look pleased. Mum and Dad's estrangement was extremely trying to her, and even to have them in the same room felt like a major achievement. Dad squeezed her shoulder, and she knew that she hadn't made a complete mistake. She would have been tempted to use her influence to push them together faster, but she was afraid that if Mum caught wind of that, she'd be out faster than anyone would even notice. She looked at Mum, who was looking at her, still with that glare, and Philotes shifted uncomfortably before she said,
"Look... I know it's not my place, and that you two are adults and all but..."
She looked from her mother to her father and back.
"It's just not right, Mum. It's not right. The two of you... you should talk, or yell, or something, at least... you're supposed to be together. This isn't how it's supposed to be."
Philotes was not the most articulate of Nyx and Erebos' children, but she could get to a point fairly succinctly.
Erebos stiffened under his daughter's chastisement. Daughters. Did not. Chastise.
But that didn't mean that she wasn't right.
He could tell that Nyx was ready to leave already. Even after all this time apart, he could still read her. So, before she could respond to Philotes, he quickly said, "I missed you, Nyx. Don't go. Please."
And now he'd pushed. He hadn't pushed her for anything, up til now. He'd never directly asked her for anything.
But he had for this.
Philotes gave him a big smile and then looked expectantly at Nyx.
Nyx's face remained carefully composed as her daughter spoke. Despite being clad in her nightgown and robe (a fact she now regretted), she managed to find a cigarette between her fingers, which lit according to her will. She felt, rather than saw, Erebos stiffen. Although she was generally less authoritarian than Erebos in most regards, in this, she shared his affront, and perhaps took it further.
She drew the odorless smoke into her lungs, preparing to respond to her daughter's inappropriate intervention, but then, He spoke.
"I missed you, Nyx. Don't go. Please."
She couldn't help it. Her eyes shot up to look at him, and it was all she could do to keep her jaw from dropping. As it was, the exhalation of the smoke covered the fact that her mouth did, indeed, open of its own accord, at least slightly.
And of course, she saw him, dark and rough and gorgeous, his eyes as piercing and deep and mesmerizing as ever.
She looked away from him. She looked away and took another drag of her cigarette.
"Philotes," she said softly, with a certain gentleness that worked against her brevity. "Leave us."
Philotes had felt her father stiffen, and she cringed a bit. She didn't want to displease Daddy. But it had to be done. And thankfully, rather than chastising her, he reached out to Mum!
Reached out to her! And everything! This was great. She couldn't wait to tell her siblings.
Upon hearing her mother's request, she leapt up, nodding.
"Of course, Mum." She gave her mother a warm hug and squeeze. She did the same for Erebos, kissing his cheek, then giving him a remorseful look, saying, "Sorry Daddy."
And then Philotes was gone.
And Nyx and Erebos were alone for the first time since she'd made him leave her so very long ago.
Taking another drag of her cigarette, she finally turned to look at him. Her jaw was flexing. She was still angry. So, so angry. But he had asked her to stay, and never, ever before had he done any such thing.
It galled some part of her, some very large, angry part of her, that still, after all this time, he still affected her.
But he would not melt her. She was determined.
"I have not gone," she said, addressing his request.
She honestly had no idea what to say to him. It was all she could do to keep her body still; not to clench her fists or say the countless cruel things that had poisoned her heart for all this time.
Philotes apologized to him, but not to Nyx. He'd talk with her later about that. Returning her embrace carefully, he then let her go and faced Nyx again.
"I see that you have. Thank you," he said, responding to her.
And then she asked The Question. The answer was simple.
"I want what I wanted before you sent me away. I want my wife. I miss my wife. Why have you not called? I had expected you to."
That would goad her. She needed to be goaded, but he wasn't gentle the last time. He could be gentle now.
"I have not called because I have not wanted to see you."
She took another drag of her cigarette, holding the smoke for a moment before exhaling it into the air.
"As for you wanting me, or missing me, you certainly have an interesting way of showing it," she said coolly. "As I recall, the last time we saw each other, I believe you actually shoved me off of your person. Or is that some new way of wanting that one of your faux-wives showed you?"
It took him a minute to calm down. He wanted to rage at her. This was her doing, all of it, and she had the audacity to...
"Anything we could have done that night would have harmed us both."
He could explain more of what he meant, but he knew she was sharp enough to understand what he meant. Any more exposition would be redundant.
Looking back, and he had looked back many times before, he knew that had he stayed instead of disappearing into the ether, he would have raged at her, may even have raised his hand to her, for that was how deep she had cut him. The three seconds of alone time that he gathered before she began yelling had been brief but very, very necessary. He didn't regret leaving her the first time. It had been the right move.
And he couldn't regret setting her aside when she tried to give her body to him. That was all he saw it as, a way of trying to make up for something that hurt him by using her body, instead of trying to work through what it was that lay between them. He didn't want that. He still didn't want that.
He wanted his wife. He longed for the deep-seated connection they shared, and he wanted it to be pure and unsoiled by bitter feelings.
More and more, he realized that he would have to wait a while longer, yet.
With a twirl of her fingers, the cigarette disappeared, leaving a ghost of odorless smoke in its wake.
"You overreacted. You overreacted when I declined your attentions."
Anger was boiling up inside of her, anger over that day, bitter resentment over his lack of appreciation for the incredible change in herself she had attempted, for Him.
Ironically, it was highly successful in many ways.
"You seem to think that I follow whims capriciously, that I'm an empty-headed twit. And for that callous dismissal of what I might have learned, and for your senseless insecurity," she said harshly, referring to how deeply she had hurt him when she had refused him, "we may never know what might have been."
She shook her head with a mirthless smile.
"You didn't even try to understand. You simply took your martyr stance, and left. Did you realize that when I let my anger overtake me, that when I went to touch you, tried to love you with my body, that I had undone the work I had been trying to do?"
She did want to hurt him. She couldn't deny that. But she had held all of this inside for lifetimes. She had never spoken of it, had never explained it to anyone. She had simply locked it inside of herself, freezing it. She freezed the pain, the hurt, everything. And now, it was melting under the heat of her anger at seeing him again, melting from her proximity to him, and pouring out everywhere.
"So please. Don't tell me of harm. I toiled relentlessly, I gave up everything I could have. For you. And gladly, I gave up everything that those sacrifices could have given us, given me, again, for you. And you shoved me away, naked and humiliated.
Again, he was becoming angry. The years of relative numbness spent in Concept seemed to fall away like chaff in the wind, and he was left with the raw anger and bitter disappointment that he felt just before she sent him away. But this time, he had warning. This time, he could be careful with her, which is what he wasn't capable of before.
His words were carefully modulated to erradicate any of the anger and heated emotions that were eating him inside. The tone was simple, quiet. It belied everything he was feeling.
"Do not accuse me of overreacting, Nyx. You have no right to do so, given the circumstances.
"Long ago, I believed you could assume to know what I was thinking and feeling. I was wrong, apparently. You do not know what I think about you, if you truly believe the words that just passed your lips.
"And as for 'what you might have learned' Nyx, you were on a path that only was working because of how you perceived yourself. It worked because you wanted it to work. A goddess of Greece sitting in a convent for nuns who follow a false religion is clearly an oxymoron. You are mistress of yourself. You could have achieved whatever 'progress' you felt, had you tried some other way, any other way that you had put your mind to. It was your first try at letting go of yourself. And you chose that cult to 'help' you do it. Anything that you would have chosen would have helped you do it, even if it was simply sitting in my lap for a century.
"I never asked you to give anything up. You asked that of yourself. You were searching for yourself, Nyx, as well as trying to find a way to keep from hurting me with your long parade of lovers. It is ironic, is it not, that since you commanded me out of your presence, you have not once hurt me in that fashion.
"But had you asked me, Nyx, I would have told you that I would rather have watched you go through a thousand more affairs, than to be without you completely."
This was, perhaps, the most he'd ever spoken in a single interval. It felt strange and it felt like he'd stripped himself down for her review.
She snorted at his turn of phrase - a long parade of lovers.
"I have found since we last met that I have derived more pleasure from denying others their desires than from indulging my own. If anything, I wanted you to suffer no illusions that our time apart was due to anything but what was between you and I."
She shot him a narrow look.
"And I have not had that many more lovers than you, Dark One, and I loved not a one of them," she said pointedly, "so you may quit your judgement at any time."
"I know not what you think of me, only what you feel. I know that you love me, and you want me. I know when you are angry, truly angry, as I know you are right now, because I can feel your heart and what is in it. And I know your mind, how you think - how you restrain yourself, how you are restraining yourself even now, because you believe it best. But I can only guess what you think of me by the way you behave and the things that you say. And the way you have behaved and the things you have said regarding the way I have lived, and especially my work with the nuns, do not indicate respect."
"As for what I may or may not have been able to do... first of all, who are you to judge which religion is false and which is not? Surely you have noticed that we are not the only gods on this plane or any other. Further, there are forces in the Universe still greater than the gods. The path I chose was the one that was working for me. It angered you because it did not suit what you desired at the time. Is that not so?"
She ran a hand through her thick, dark curls, unconsciously feeling at the scalp underneath.
She turned, giving him her profile.
"You are right; you did not ask me to sacrifice anything. And it is unworthy to expect accolades or reward for doing what is right, for what should be done, and I expected neither. What I did not expect was to be shoved aside, shut out, and shown just how little you really do need me."
She turned back to look at him. "I would have stayed 'in your lap,' if you had but asked. I would have forsaken all others, if you had but asked. In those moments before you cast me aside, I would have done anything for you, Erebos. Anything."
Where was his littleNyxie?
When she did not return to the cult, he felt hopeful. She would call now. She found what she needed. She would call him. He waited.
He waited.
He waited.
The darkness had become less intense in those days, those days of hopeful waiting... but it became apparent that she would not call for him. She wasn't going to call.
It was then that the Black Death descended over Europe, taking lovers and tearing them apart. Then families. Then friends. Everyone. Everyone. He liked it, that virus that refused to die. He preserved it, allowed it to hide within him and breed, and released it when he lifted away.
But despite burying himself in his work (and his recreational activities), he could still feel every movement of Her. She moved inside him, whether she wanted to realize it or not, and it made him ache.
He couldn't have stayed with her when he last saw her; it would not have helped anything. It would have dismissed those things that needed to be discussed. But he hadn't been able to discuss those things, at that moment, not then. He was too raw, and she was too raw, and it would not have ended pleasantly.
It didn't end pleasantly anyway. Nothing that he did seemed to matter. While he felt that he could speak with her about it now, perhaps she couldn't. She avoided him as often as she could, even though he had not been in tangible form since he left her at her order.
But that didn't mean that she didn't avoid him.
He understood enough to understand where he wasn't wanted.
He did not go to her, as much as he wanted to see her. He would not go. It was she who sent him away, and he was clear as to what would make it apparent when she wanted him again.
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Sleeping at night was a practice which she hadn't quite yet mastered, and when something was amiss with any of her children, it was almost impossible.
It was Philotes.
Crying?
Philotes didn't cry. Philotes was quite possibly the most easygoing, happy-go-lucky of her children - which one wouldn't generally think was saying much, but it actually was.
No matter how hard-hearted Nyx might have become toward the rest of the world, she still couldn't turn away from one of her children in pain - much less one of the children who was least likely to have brought it upon herself. Night pulled a silk robe from the air that wrapped around her. She didn't bother to bind her hair or pay much attention to anything else.
Appearing before her daughter in her customary shower of midnight blue sparks, she said more gently than anyone had heard her in a very long time,
"What's wrong, love?"
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While Erebos was cold and typically an unemotional wall, he had a deep-seated love for his family. Loyalty meant family to him.
So when his child called him -- and in such a manner -- he could do nothing but go.
Appearing just behind Philotes, he murmured softly "I am here, my daugh---"
Nyx.
His words died on his lips. He was, quite literally, speechless.
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Philotes looked guilty. "Hullo, Mum. Hullo, Dad."
"Am I to assume," Nyx said softly, keeping an icy grip on her temper, "that you brought me here in the hope of some kind of reconciliation, Philotes?"
Philotes cringed. She had never quite heard her mother sound like that before.
But this was ridiculous. Mum and Dad had never spent this much time apart. Not even close. Not even a little. Even when she was out with the Asian cultists, they hadn't been all silent and awful.
Until Whatever Happened.
Then there was just nothing. Nothing at all.
They'd been mad at each other before, but this was just... wrong. After the first decade, things had gotten a bit itchy. By the end of the first fifty years, a couple of her siblings and she had started to get really worried.
By this point?
Somebody had to do something.
The spirit swallowed, putting on the best smile she could given her mother's glare (which she'd never had the honor of enjoying before),
"Um. Well. You know."
Nyx was not smiling.
"Yes, Mum," Philotes said quickly, then looked to Erebos for support.
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Gently, he rested his hand on her shoulder, in silent support. He didn't think that this had been the best way to go about getting him and Nyx in the same room together -- it felt pretty damned deceitful, really -- but now that she'd done it...
....he couldn't say that he minded. Even angry, Nyx was beautiful. He'd forgotten....
He'd forgotten how good it was to be in her presence. Even if she was angry.
He should be angry too, but he wasn't. He missed her. He'd missed her before all of this happened, and now all he wanted to do was ...
He took his hand from Philotes' shoulder, after squeezing it subtuly. He hoped his daughter wasn't affecting him.
But no. No, even without touching her shoulder, he still wanted to run over to Nyx and grab her up and hold her forever.
And it was quite clear that he would not be allowed to do that.
But he could at least try to do....something.
"Hello, Nyx," he said. He didn't dare to hope that she would respond. She wouldn't even look at him.
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The children didn't understand. They didn't understand because they didn't know what had happened. Which was just as Nyx liked it, really, because she wasn't all that pleased that she herself knew what had occurred so many years ago with Erebos, let alone having the children be aware of it.
But he'd spoken to her. Said hello. She wanted to ignore him.
No, no actually she wanted to slap him. Hard. Or strike him. Or smite him.
The vehement violence of her thoughts took even her aback.
But she did none of these, and there was no external indication that she wanted to, other than a very, very subtle twitch of her jaw.
"Hello, Erebos," she said formally, as though to a business acquaintence.
She did not look at him. She would not look at him, she would not give him even the slightest crack to slip through.
Oh, no. Not today.
She continued to look at her daughter, awaiting some semblance of an explanation before she simply left.
Philotes tried not to look pleased. Mum and Dad's estrangement was extremely trying to her, and even to have them in the same room felt like a major achievement. Dad squeezed her shoulder, and she knew that she hadn't made a complete mistake. She would have been tempted to use her influence to push them together faster, but she was afraid that if Mum caught wind of that, she'd be out faster than anyone would even notice. She looked at Mum, who was looking at her, still with that glare, and Philotes shifted uncomfortably before she said,
"Look... I know it's not my place, and that you two are adults and all but..."
She looked from her mother to her father and back.
"It's just not right, Mum. It's not right. The two of you... you should talk, or yell, or something, at least... you're supposed to be together. This isn't how it's supposed to be."
Philotes was not the most articulate of Nyx and Erebos' children, but she could get to a point fairly succinctly.
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But that didn't mean that she wasn't right.
He could tell that Nyx was ready to leave already. Even after all this time apart, he could still read her. So, before she could respond to Philotes, he quickly said, "I missed you, Nyx. Don't go. Please."
And now he'd pushed. He hadn't pushed her for anything, up til now. He'd never directly asked her for anything.
But he had for this.
Philotes gave him a big smile and then looked expectantly at Nyx.
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She drew the odorless smoke into her lungs, preparing to respond to her daughter's inappropriate intervention, but then, He spoke.
"I missed you, Nyx. Don't go. Please."
She couldn't help it. Her eyes shot up to look at him, and it was all she could do to keep her jaw from dropping. As it was, the exhalation of the smoke covered the fact that her mouth did, indeed, open of its own accord, at least slightly.
And of course, she saw him, dark and rough and gorgeous, his eyes as piercing and deep and mesmerizing as ever.
She looked away from him. She looked away and took another drag of her cigarette.
"Philotes," she said softly, with a certain gentleness that worked against her brevity. "Leave us."
Philotes had felt her father stiffen, and she cringed a bit. She didn't want to displease Daddy. But it had to be done. And thankfully, rather than chastising her, he reached out to Mum!
Reached out to her! And everything! This was great. She couldn't wait to tell her siblings.
Upon hearing her mother's request, she leapt up, nodding.
"Of course, Mum." She gave her mother a warm hug and squeeze. She did the same for Erebos, kissing his cheek, then giving him a remorseful look, saying, "Sorry Daddy."
And then Philotes was gone.
And Nyx and Erebos were alone for the first time since she'd made him leave her so very long ago.
Taking another drag of her cigarette, she finally turned to look at him. Her jaw was flexing. She was still angry. So, so angry. But he had asked her to stay, and never, ever before had he done any such thing.
It galled some part of her, some very large, angry part of her, that still, after all this time, he still affected her.
But he would not melt her. She was determined.
"I have not gone," she said, addressing his request.
She honestly had no idea what to say to him. It was all she could do to keep her body still; not to clench her fists or say the countless cruel things that had poisoned her heart for all this time.
"What do you want of me?"
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"I see that you have. Thank you," he said, responding to her.
And then she asked The Question.
The answer was simple.
"I want what I wanted before you sent me away. I want my wife. I miss my wife. Why have you not called? I had expected you to."
That would goad her. She needed to be goaded, but he wasn't gentle the last time. He could be gentle now.
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Excellent.
Her smile was intensely cold.
"I have not called because I have not wanted to see you."
She took another drag of her cigarette, holding the smoke for a moment before exhaling it into the air.
"As for you wanting me, or missing me, you certainly have an interesting way of showing it," she said coolly. "As I recall, the last time we saw each other, I believe you actually shoved me off of your person. Or is that some new way of wanting that one of your faux-wives showed you?"
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"No."
It took him a minute to calm down. He wanted to rage at her. This was her doing, all of it, and she had the audacity to...
"Anything we could have done that night would have harmed us both."
He could explain more of what he meant, but he knew she was sharp enough to understand what he meant. Any more exposition would be redundant.
Looking back, and he had looked back many times before, he knew that had he stayed instead of disappearing into the ether, he would have raged at her, may even have raised his hand to her, for that was how deep she had cut him. The three seconds of alone time that he gathered before she began yelling had been brief but very, very necessary. He didn't regret leaving her the first time. It had been the right move.
And he couldn't regret setting her aside when she tried to give her body to him. That was all he saw it as, a way of trying to make up for something that hurt him by using her body, instead of trying to work through what it was that lay between them. He didn't want that. He still didn't want that.
He wanted his wife. He longed for the deep-seated connection they shared, and he wanted it to be pure and unsoiled by bitter feelings.
More and more, he realized that he would have to wait a while longer, yet.
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With a twirl of her fingers, the cigarette disappeared, leaving a ghost of odorless smoke in its wake.
"You overreacted. You overreacted when I declined your attentions."
Anger was boiling up inside of her, anger over that day, bitter resentment over his lack of appreciation for the incredible change in herself she had attempted, for Him.
Ironically, it was highly successful in many ways.
"You seem to think that I follow whims capriciously, that I'm an empty-headed twit. And for that callous dismissal of what I might have learned, and for your senseless insecurity," she said harshly, referring to how deeply she had hurt him when she had refused him, "we may never know what might have been."
She shook her head with a mirthless smile.
"You didn't even try to understand. You simply took your martyr stance, and left. Did you realize that when I let my anger overtake me, that when I went to touch you, tried to love you with my body, that I had undone the work I had been trying to do?"
She did want to hurt him. She couldn't deny that. But she had held all of this inside for lifetimes. She had never spoken of it, had never explained it to anyone. She had simply locked it inside of herself, freezing it. She freezed the pain, the hurt, everything. And now, it was melting under the heat of her anger at seeing him again, melting from her proximity to him, and pouring out everywhere.
"So please. Don't tell me of harm. I toiled relentlessly, I gave up everything I could have. For you. And gladly, I gave up everything that those sacrifices could have given us, given me, again, for you. And you shoved me away, naked and humiliated.
"There is your harm."
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His words were carefully modulated to erradicate any of the anger and heated emotions that were eating him inside. The tone was simple, quiet. It belied everything he was feeling.
"Do not accuse me of overreacting, Nyx. You have no right to do so, given the circumstances.
"Long ago, I believed you could assume to know what I was thinking and feeling. I was wrong, apparently. You do not know what I think about you, if you truly believe the words that just passed your lips.
"And as for 'what you might have learned' Nyx, you were on a path that only was working because of how you perceived yourself. It worked because you wanted it to work. A goddess of Greece sitting in a convent for nuns who follow a false religion is clearly an oxymoron. You are mistress of yourself. You could have achieved whatever 'progress' you felt, had you tried some other way, any other way that you had put your mind to. It was your first try at letting go of yourself. And you chose that cult to 'help' you do it. Anything that you would have chosen would have helped you do it, even if it was simply sitting in my lap for a century.
"I never asked you to give anything up. You asked that of yourself. You were searching for yourself, Nyx, as well as trying to find a way to keep from hurting me with your long parade of lovers. It is ironic, is it not, that since you commanded me out of your presence, you have not once hurt me in that fashion.
"But had you asked me, Nyx, I would have told you that I would rather have watched you go through a thousand more affairs, than to be without you completely."
This was, perhaps, the most he'd ever spoken in a single interval. It felt strange and it felt like he'd stripped himself down for her review.
He did not like it.
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"I have found since we last met that I have derived more pleasure from denying others their desires than from indulging my own. If anything, I wanted you to suffer no illusions that our time apart was due to anything but what was between you and I."
She shot him a narrow look.
"And I have not had that many more lovers than you, Dark One, and I loved not a one of them," she said pointedly, "so you may quit your judgement at any time."
"I know not what you think of me, only what you feel. I know that you love me, and you want me. I know when you are angry, truly angry, as I know you are right now, because I can feel your heart and what is in it. And I know your mind, how you think - how you restrain yourself, how you are restraining yourself even now, because you believe it best. But I can only guess what you think of me by the way you behave and the things that you say. And the way you have behaved and the things you have said regarding the way I have lived, and especially my work with the nuns, do not indicate respect."
"As for what I may or may not have been able to do... first of all, who are you to judge which religion is false and which is not? Surely you have noticed that we are not the only gods on this plane or any other. Further, there are forces in the Universe still greater than the gods. The path I chose was the one that was working for me. It angered you because it did not suit what you desired at the time. Is that not so?"
She ran a hand through her thick, dark curls, unconsciously feeling at the scalp underneath.
She turned, giving him her profile.
"You are right; you did not ask me to sacrifice anything. And it is unworthy to expect accolades or reward for doing what is right, for what should be done, and I expected neither. What I did not expect was to be shoved aside, shut out, and shown just how little you really do need me."
She turned back to look at him. "I would have stayed 'in your lap,' if you had but asked. I would have forsaken all others, if you had but asked. In those moments before you cast me aside, I would have done anything for you, Erebos. Anything."
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