Hermes | Book 1

: 28 :

Ignorance;
They had wings,
but they couldn't fly.

Chapter 28

FROM THE time she had returned to Eta, Asta had always carried something with her- mentally- that she couldn't quite explain.

At first, she thought it was anger; raging red anger that was as terrifying and destructive as a fire when out of control.

Then she thought that it was the sense of wanting revenge that let its thin tendrils wrap around her thoughts, sometimes subtly pulling it and sometimes finding its way to her heart and twisting almost painfully in certain occasions. She had suffered humiliation at the hands of those people, her intellect had been shunned; they made her believe that she could fly and then they had let her fall when all along it was them who had ripped her off her wings.

Then she thought it was human purpose. A want to make the world understand the extent that she gone to, to escape from that cage. To save the rest of the world from what she had experienced.

She was wrong.

Actually, in a sense she wasn't. She had all of those feelings and emotions taking a small but disastrously significant amount in her every cell but that was not the right answer. Somewhere in her consciousness she knew exactly what the package she was carrying was.

But it wasn't until she had seen Hermes that day at the dead of the night, following blankly behind her father, his familiar golden hair now chopped short enough to show allow her a discreet peek of his glittering, mischievous eyes, that Asta truly realized it.

Even then the answer was was unclear, like a vague memory of a film you had seen many many years back.

Now Hermes sat in front of her, his eyes burning holes into hers, full of questions and accusations and Asta knew exactly what that feeling was.

"We are not Gods, Hermes," said Asta with brutal clarity. "We never were, we never will be. We are humans; disgusting, imperfect, mortal-"

She stopped.

In the back of her mind something dawned slowly, but with such startling perfection that Asta immediately knew why she had taken so long to accept it.

Hermes looked at her with terrifying stillness. His face was wiped clean of any emotion, even those golden eyes that she loved so much was smothered with an emptiness  that Asta recognized without a seconds hesitation. The shattering realization that had bloomed in her mind was pushed aside for later.

"Hermes?" Asta questioned. His name came out in a strangled whisper, but she didn't even notice.

Not now. Not now. Not now.

Please, please, please.

The wind shook the building, but Asta hardly cared. Desperation overtook her and she leaned forward, grabbing his surprisingly warm hands, beseeching with her eyes to remember.

Hermes, Hermes, Hermes.

Please.

Asta didn't feel the coldness of the concrete on her cheek until Hermes venomously uttered his first words after her speaking. "You are a liar." He had shoved her away from him, not hard enough to cause her any physical harm, but enough to show his repulsion towards her.