Cry of the Moon

Chapter 12: A New Life

As I'm sure you can guess, dear reader, Endymion and I broke that deal just as quickly as we broke the last. Long after we replaced the couch, I still fell asleep every night to his arms wrapped around me.

Endymion and my relationship is what you could call a whirlwind. One night I had gone to bed only seeing him as the kind man who had taken me in and saved me. The next morning when I awoke and saw him gazing at me with his soft, blue-green eyes, his downy brown hair still mussed from sleep, something in my chest broke open.

That's when I finally realized what you may already have, reader; I was in love. Deeply, unrelentingly, overwhelmingly in love. The feeling was one I'd never felt before and it was so strong I began to cry.

"What's wrong?" Endymion asks, drawing me close to him.

"Nothing," I tell him. "They are tears of joy because absolutely nothing is wrong. I could stay here all day if I had to."

And that's exactly what we do. We stay in bed all day, only getting up for water and food. We talk about our lives before we'd known each other, though I, of course, had to be careful with what I said.

I learn that Endymion comes from a family of 7 boys and was born on the island of Crete. When he was 17, his parents and three of his brothers died of a plague and seeing no life for himself on Crete, he snuck aboard a merchant vessel that took him to the land we live in now. Here, he became an apprentice to a farmer and took over when the old man passed on.

"How about you?" Endymion asks. "Where are you from? What is your family like?"

I hesitate, wondering what I can tell him without him thinking me crazy. "I was born in... in Colchis," I say, naming the first place that comes to mind. "I have two siblings, a twin brother and a younger sister."

"And your parents?"

"Both dead," I lie, though is it really a lie if you haven't seen them in nearly a thousand millennia.

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"Don't be," I tell him, snuggling closer to his warm chest. "We didn't quite... get along towards the end. I supposed you could say we were on two sides of a battle that didn't end well for anyone."

"So where have you lived since then? I've never heard of an unmarried woman living apart from her father or brother."

"My brother is married and I'm afraid his wife and I don't exactly get along. I can't imagine what she would do if I moved in with them."

"So you live alone?" Endymion sounds slightly aghast.

"I live with my sister. Her husband is always away so it's mostly just the two of us, though my brother visits sometimes," I assure him. "My sister was married before, but her husband died. The new one... all he wants are heirs. He doesn't really care about her so it's mostly just the two of us."

Endymion wraps his arms around me, pulling me tight to him. "You never have to worry about losing me," he says, planting a gentle kiss on my forehead. I hold his words in my heart and send a prayer to every being I know that they will hold true.

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We get married less than a year later. Neither of us have parents to approve the wedding so we ask the town elders to approve it instead. I spend the day before the wedding with Eos on a beautiful little forest island where nymphs fuss over me all day, designing me a dress of cotton and lichen decorations. We feast on nectar and honey and all sorts of other delicacies I haven't tasted since I lived on Olympus. A little after sunset, Helios ambushes me in the woods, pulling me out of sight of my army of women.