Forever (Always)

Chapter 6

Perseus was a being of love. He was created by love, and he will die by it.

Since a young age, the god was always kind and thoughtful, preferring to assist his mother in the house than play with others his age. As he grew older, he made meals for the less fortunate and bandaged wounds of small children on the streets that didn't have someone to do it for them.

Perseus was a being of love even if his parentage said otherwise, and everyone knew it. The Norns had seen it, too, and gave him the fatal flaw of loyalty. They had assumed that, in doing so, it would curb his kindness, make him more careful and selfish.

The Norns were wrong. Once the young god discovered his flaw, he hid away in a lonely world he created for himself with flowers and plants as far as the eye could see, but not another soul in sight. He didn't let anyone near him, let anyone within reaching distance, because he never wanted to be the cause of someone else's demise. It wasn't many years later that the young god had met Loki, had let his heart open up in the wake of the trickster god's smile. Even now, as he mourned Loki and felt as though his flaw was the one that killed him, Perseus would never regret the love he felt for the Norse god.

Visions from the Norns were always difficult to decipher because they were always up to interpretation and only viewed by the one blessed with them. If Perseus decided to view his flaw as something dangerous, as the cause of someone else's death, there was nothing anyone could do to convince him otherwise save for the Norns themselves.

Loyalty would be the cause of the god of Alltid's demise, but it was a fitting end to a being that embraced life and love the way the universe intended.

"You're cruel." Perseus whispered, his hands clenched in fists from where he knelt in the cabin at Camp Halfblood that he shared with no one. "I've done what you've asked of me, I've served the Norns faithfully to the best of my abilities, and yet..." His breath came out unsteady as he bowed his head. "I don't know what I've done to deserve this, to deserve him being ripped from me just as it was all starting."

Just like with anyone, Perseus spoke and he prayed without expecting a response. He dedicated his life to the ones that showed him visions of different moments in time; of life and death, of worry and strife. He dedicated all that he had to the ones that revealed his own death to him as a test, a way to see if he would pause and try to divert it. Now that he knew what had triggered the beginning of his demise, he couldn't find the urge to prevent his fate. He chose to accept it because he wasn't sure he had many years left in him even if he tried to live properly on his own.

"Was this a test?" The words were hissed harshly from his lips, his legs beginning to burn from the cramped position he was knelt in in front of the small fountain in his cabin. His eyes glowed a poisonous green, reflected in the glass of the mirror sat on top of the structure, and the earth trembled for a brief moment as rage coursed through him. "Was this one of your bullshit tests?!"

The god swung a fist out, shattering his own reflection in the mirror as the glass dug into his skin and his red-gold blood splashed across the floor. "What have I done?! What has Loki done?! Why-"