𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐄𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐃 𝐎𝐅 𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐒

𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍|𝐌𝐘 𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐂𝐈𝐅𝐔𝐋 𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐒

OPHELIA

  "THANK YOU, merciful Ares." Says Daedalus, head bowed and palms still against the table. "She will bring me much happiness." And though his mouth moves for a smile, the craftsman makes little attempt to hide the misery in his eyes.
He is the moon on a clear summer's night, surrounded by stars, but dreadfully alone. They don't understand him, they never will. Though similar, they are not one piece the same.

My only hope is Andromeda can survive the shadow of being a star.

I do not recall the last time I saw my sister take a breath. Her face is ashen, like a body drained of blood. Breathe, I beg her, breathe. If she collapses it will not do anybody any good — only serve about a great deal of humiliation.

Worst of all I cannot tell how this Northern King would react to such a front. Would he laugh as she slid lifeless from her chair? — Throw up his arms and jeer at the weakness of women.
Or would he rage? — damning her sensitivity as sin. She would not be the first to be condemned for her aversion.

That is if he would even care to acknowledge it at all, for what is a girl to a King really? If she's not to warm his bed or bare his sons then she has no purpose. If her hips are not full and her lips not plump with kindness and a smile that appears only for him, then she may as well be dead, for she is unworthy of notice.

  Men believe being unnoticed to be a woman's greatest nightmare, — how could they not wish to be desired by them? Held by them? Thrust into and filled by them?
  In reality, being ignored by men is the greatest gift a woman could ask for. If I had been unnoticed by men I certainly would not be sitting here now.

In that same way that to a God, a King is not worthy of being glanced upon. Other than the hunk of metal atop his head, to a God, a King is the same as any other mortal.
  I have yet to decide what I believe this Northerner to be, if either. Maybe it is only that he is something entirely other.

Because to a non-believer God, King and girl are all the same. Power is no tangible thing, though it can be given and taken, a thing may only have as much power as you allow it.
This King, for example, is might incarnate, and yet, at the bare bones of him, he is no different than any other man.
No matter how vile, beating in the cavity of his chest he has a heart, flowing through his veins he has blood, and in his palms, he holds humane warmth. He lives and breathes by the same mechanisms as us, only he sits at the head of the table whilst we worship below.

All men are only any more than the sum of their parts if they are allowed to believe so.

"Enyo," If this King is capable of affection then this is it; a shining devastation to his cold calculation. The hag creature enters and sits, not too close but certainly not far away for my liking. From here I can see the sagging grey of her skin, like that of a corpse— perhaps she stole that too — and her teeth too jagged for her mouth.

The skin of the old woman's lips is stretched threadbare, struggling to cover dagger-like canines far too sharp to possibly be inborn. My hunger dissipates.

"Kingling," She grins. I wish she wouldn't. The little food I've consumed threatens to reappear, "It is done, Perseus the bastard child has been struck out, reborn in all his true, cowardly glory!"

  "I am glad to hear it." He gives a small, patient smile back; but it is radiant as the evening sun that cries about his crown. He is night. He is day. He is navy and gold. He is every monstrous thing that lingers after dark. He is those first and fleeting rays of sunrise. He is the danger, and yet somehow, the safety.