Silver Stranded Stars

11. Plaything of Zeus

Dead again.

I feel the sickening warmth of the slab of stone beneath me.

It is not my first time. Or the ninth time.

But it is one of my more lucid times.

Because behind the veil of memory about to crash a migraine through me, is the flicker of something good.

A splinter of light in this deep dark pit I have landed.

Pits. Blood. Gore. At my hands. My vision fish-eyed, my horns...

I open my eyes, relieved they face forward. I move toes, and the horror of hooves fades. I tap the hard edge of this coffin with one long finger. The girl of green called them birthing trays, but I think my own term fits better. When you can't die, but want to, they are coffins, containers of bodies, prisons for souls.

I think I have a human body this time. I believe it is male. I am something more neutral today, but this will do. Better than...

"My bull-headed son."

The words from the universe's sick creation of father crests the wave of pain in my head. I remember.

"Hercules."

That's not my name.

Memories surface: Persephones leading me from the chamber, a bandage on her arm. The dark shadow of Hades, threatening, protective. The Hell of Zeus's ego tossed into the ocean. Another death. Waking a beast. The pit. Blackness. Others attacking, me killing them, breaking them to pieces too easily, some fear or guttural instinct taking over. The body does the work, but it is my torn-nails that are stained with blood. Then—

I gasp, bring a hand to the smooth lay of muscle across my chest, over my heart. It aches.

She stepped out of the shadows, graceful, edged with two blue-green blades spread like wings. Her face--hard, so hard. But I'd seen it soft. I'd seen it relaxed next to me, brought her back from her demons. I'd seen it surrender to sleep trusting me to guard her. I'd wanted to be the end to the demons that haunted her nightmares.

I grimace.

And now I am one.

I stretch out along the tan grey stone. I have long legs, and a thick torso. The sheen of my skin is Silver, and I appreciate the piece of me that has been kept. I stretch a hand across to the thin lip that lines the inside of the coffin, pull myself up. My reach is further, I stand, the crown of my hair brushing the ceiling. He has made me tall. As always I am overly endowed with musculature, but I have woken so many times to this, it jars me less.

And this time I don't care.

Because she is alive.

I have never been religious.

I have ever believed in the facts before me, and not what others present. When a wrong seems wrong, I have followed it to its source. The failing circles of Venn, the people left outside, I'd found a place for them. I'd helped rebuild the value of human made, forced back the simplistic death we were heading towards of convenience and instant creation.

Good things take time.

I believed I was doing good. And I didn't believe her when she'd spoken of a God who could light himself on fire, that drank her blood. My own marred perception, even having received the blessing of Artemis/Apollo, I hadn't believed enough.

I believe now.

But it isn't in a faith.

It was another wrinkle of wrongness. Because the heinous being who is my father had been human once. And it all seemed to circle back to that fact. What had happened to change him so terribly?