This Is Stella's Reality

August 6, 2015

"Father," I said softly as I knelt before his throne. My voice echoed in the emptiness of his champers. A fire flickered in the hearth, and my divinity flowed through me like a great storm.

He stared down at me, an amused smile on his face. "Yes, my child?" There was a gleam in his eyes, bright in the flame's glow.

"I have come to seek answers," I said. "My husbands, they are different now. Divinity has been etched into their veins." My eyes rose to Hades. I shivered at the grin on his lips. "Has the Underworld changed them?"

My father was silent for a moment. Relishing in his superior knowledge. "I have given you a wedding gift. Do you not enjoy it?" He asked teasingly.

I swallowed, growing uneasy with each passing second. "I do not understand it," I admitted.

"If you are the stars," he began, "glittering in the vastness of space. They are the sun and the moon."

He said it as if I was meant to understand from that knowledge alone. I furrowed my brows, even more confused now. My head shook, "What are you talking about?"

Hades sighed, standing from his throne. He offered me his arm, like he did when I was a child and we walked the great halls of the castle. "Come, daughter," he said simply.

We passed through corridors filled with skittering servants carrying trays of wine and cheese. They didn't make eye contact as we swept through the halls. I followed my father as he led me upstairs and over walkways.

I knew where we were going. Fear and adrenaline shot through me. My stomach churned at the recognition.

He opened an old, dark oak door, creaking at the hinges as it swayed. We stepped inside the dark room. The spinning of a loom cracked in my ears. Mumbling and scattered whispers filled the air.

The Fates.

"You are the stars," Hades said again. His finger pointed upwards, to the dazzling constellations that blinked on the ceiling. A moving mural of the Fates' prophecies. Written into reality by their will. "And your husbands," he paused, staring so deeply into my eyes I felt as if I would turn to stone, "they are the sun and the moon."

"But what does that mean?" I insisted. "What did the Underworld do to them?"

He chuckled and watched the weaving of strings. "The blonde," he said lowly, "when he passed, his soul became bound to the Underworld. You know that. By insisting it was not his time, you defied the Fates."

His eyes turned to me, dark as black holes. "But not really. They see all. They knew millenia ago that the mortal would perish and you would come to save him. So they wrote it into the stars that the Underworld would change him.

"The three of you are linked. Souls bound by the very threads you see before you. He is your sun, golden and bright. Headstrong and determined beyond belief. The other, he is your moon. Grounded and mellow. Soft as the pale silver light of night. The sun and the moon, and you, all the stars."

I tried to form a response, but my throat felt dry. No words came to me. My mind whirled like a tornado.

"It was prophesied at the dawn of Olympic time that your fates would be intertwined. They were always meant to become divine. It seems as if mortal empires thought the same and meant to fulfill the prophecy themselves," he chuckled. "They are not fully divine. They are still mortal. They may still die. But not of natural causes. By entering the Underworld and returning to the surface, they have denied death."

Our eyes met, and he smiled. "So, I say again, happy marriage." He offered me his arm once more, and we left the Fates to their work.

Happy marriage. To two, now, demigods. My boys.