She wasn’t the same.
This wasn’t my human.
That was it. Curiosity sated. Adventure ended. All could return as it were.
I returned to Hell, but my homecoming was met with silence, as I couldn’t open my mouth to explain where I’d gone or what I’d done. My lips remained sealed when my father demanded an explanation as to why I’d abandoned negotiations. I had my legions intercept my sister the moment I learned she was en route to taunt me, refusing to give her the chance. Word had drifted through the realms that my attention had been caught by a human. There were no secrets.
Izi claimed to love humans. She said that, of anyone, I should be able to talk to her about my affinity for the creatures. But I knew she was the last one I wanted to talk to.
But this... This was...who was this? What was her name?
Two days in hell, a month in the earthly realm, and I returned.
I crossed the threshold into the human girl’s home like a phantom in the shadows, drawn to her like a magnet.
I learned her name was Eleni, though I wasn’t sure if it suited her.
To be fair, Shala hadn’t suited the shimmering soul of my human, either.
They were mortal sounds on the tongues of men, quite like Amagi and Izi, flimsy attempts to name something utterly immaterial.
A person. A being. Something more. Something other.
I followed the iridescent opaque whites with flashes of pink, blue, and green that sparkled around her. Yes, it had to be her. Her aura was the same kaleidoscope of hues amidst mortal seas of one-note blues and reds and oranges and whatever other colors were in the boring human palette. There was that same not-quite-a-scent to her soul. It was the lungful of pure air between the highest cloud and the cold sky. But most of all, lives and lives later, she looked up each night and remainedconnected to the stars. She, who had looked through the veil, into my eyes, and called me Star.
So, I waited.
And waited.
And waited.
I learned curious things about this new human. For example, she was fortunate enough to study beneath Aristotle himself, though it was done in secret, for her and for all women who deigned to study.
I continued to follow, numb to the years. As I did, compulsion took over.
Eleni was fortunate in discoveries, in money, in health. Her family remarked at how lucky she’d been in the past few years, and they, along with their daughter, made regular offerings to Athena to express gratitude for the work the goddess was doing behind the veil.
Right. It was the goddess who had taken an acute interest in Eleni’s betterment.
Her family couldn’t quite understand why her luck didn’t extend to love, however.
For reasons unbeknownst to mortals, quite curiously, so mysteriously, most of her suitors ended up perishing of quick and mysterious illnesses. What can I say? I couldn’t help myself.
One fell off a cliff. Another died from sepsis following a slice on the finger from a piece of parchment. As she stretched from sixteen to eighteen to twenty, her parents began to fret that their daughter had been born with a curse. My preventative solutions weren’t creative, but my human had been married the last time I’d been around her, and the human male had failed her. I wasn’t going to allow for that mistake again.
Her family remained diligent in their offerings for the first several years that I was in Eleni’s life.
“You’re welcome,” came my deadpan joke as her father carried a silk tapestry to the goddess’s temple.
“If you’re fine with someone else taking credit for your handiwork, it’s no skin off my back,” Athena shrugged. “Her last few suitors were godless, but if you kill the wrong man, you and I will exchange words.”
Our ribbing did more to bolster relationships between Olympus and Hell than any half-baked plan to fuck a nymph.
Women in Athens were not permitted freedom and education and autonomy unless they were protected under the goddess’s banner. While Athena appreciated what I was doing, she cautioned me against my protective nature. It was poised to backfire, came her admonition.
But the days were lovely, the nights were bright, the future was perfect, and Eleni…well…she wasn’t Shala…but she was mine. It wasn’t logical. I couldn’t justify it. But I had no intention of letting go.
Besides, what did the goddess of wisdom know?
