I sit still as I watch Than pace in front of me. He sits down - his legs bouncing - for just and instant before he gets back up and resumes his restless pacing.
This isn't alright, Than has never lost his temper or his patience or his wits ever before, not like this. That's what - despite his undeniable loyalty to Hades - made me share what I'd learned with him. That ancient control he has over his emotions.
He has always been my pillar of strength. This cunning, clever being has always been my most trusted companion in this hidden war waged deep beneath the Underworld's colorful mask.
And now he looks like something broke him, like after so many centuries of living, life has finally got him in its unyielding deathtrap. The one even the most resourceful of gods can never escape.
I wouldn't be surprised, he is after all truly ancient. Older than he tells most of the people he meets even. I don't know why he tells people he's around three millennia old when truly, he was born at the same time the world took shape, perhaps even sooner. Born from Night herself.
So old and yet so juvenile looking - younger than most gods prefer, nothing more than a newborn baby compared to how he is often depicted by humans. I don't know why that is either, perhaps because he thinks people will be more comfortable when Death comes in the body of an adolescent than the body of someone bent with age.
Maybe he just prefers the fitness of an eighteen year-old.
There are so many things I don't know about him, and so few things I will get to know about him.
"Seph... I just-I..." A sigh escapes from his lips as he runs a hand through his hair. He at last casts his eyes on me and the look in them nearly makes me want to cry. He sits himself down in the chair opposite of mine again - his back curved, his shoulders slumped.
He looks so... devastated, pained even. Nothing like the cool calculation normally gracing his features. Nothing like the rage that has recently been haunting his expressions more and more often. He stresses himself too much lately.
He looks so... broken.
I don't push him to tell me what's wrong. I never have and I never will either.
He has always been comfortable with silence. I am not, but I respect him and his needs.To think I didn't much like him when I first got to the Underworld seems silly now.
He is the darkness to my sunlight and the calm to my ferocity.
He is the one I trust with my secrets, the one I trust with my sorrows, the one I trust with my life.
He is my best friend.
YOU ARE READING
a Queen of Butterflies
FantasyThe gods of Ancient Greece have not been interfering with the human world for over 2 millenia but they have been everything but dormant. The three kings, Hades, Poseidon and Zeus are at war with eachother and right in the middle, between Underworld...
