he was a victim of the of the part that loved, the part that was mortal
I had been a god, once. I might have told her, had she asked me.
I had been a god, once. I had been a god of my own life; careless; too powerful. I could detail all the promises of my birth; how I had been my mother’s only son and my father’s only heir. That hadn’t been important, however; what had been important was the way that I would excel my peers physically and mentally; what would matter would be how I fought.
I had been a god, once, when I went to war. Nearly untouchable. When we went to war, we had both been young gods, drunk on triumphs, arrogant on youth. The first time I had been painted for battle, had donned my armor, grasped my spear—I had known I had been made for specific purpose, to lord over those fields of conflict, to meet with death and walk away.
I had been a god, once, when I had been young. A god who did not know love, or regret, or even hate; a vapid god, to whom life had been a series of predestined certainties. Decisions were made; but decisions didn’t matter, not truly, until—
Until I had nearly lost my life. Until the war ended. Until I was no longer young.
Drunk on Damascus’s magic, these truths come unbidden and full of self-deprecation; they are the truths of a man who has lived through something he shouldn’t have; who has gained a perspective the world never ought have lent him. The truth, the monstrous truth—
I do not regret what I did.
(It had been a necessity; to hate her, after her confession, had been a necessity. To love her, to forgive her, would have warped everything I would have ever known. I fell in love with my companion; with my brother in arms; with a man who had slept and bled and fought besides me. And she changed all of that, with her truth. She changed all of that, by betraying me first).
I cannot regret it.
I cannot regret it, because if I did, if I acknowledged my own monstrous betrayal; it would be the end of me. And instead, I exhale sharply. I listen to her, as she says:
We love to break things, don’t we? And then try to fix them, only to break them again. I have a habit of ruining all the good in my life—or, at the very least, taking the bad and making it worse.
The words are not so separate from my own experiences. These events should feel far from here, from now, from this time and place; instead they exist with us within the living room. Instead, they haunt me in the glancing shadows, where I see Boudika and Dagda, where my father lurks and my sisters laugh. Cillian is there, and Khier, young and unfamiliar. I want to be like you, he had said. But it was always Boudika—Bondike. It was always the person who betrayed me, who transformed all I had known into a lie, every soft memory, every hope of empathy or progress.
Do you still love them, Torix? Do you still desire them? What if I could take that away? If just for a moment?
I close my eyes. I cannot stand it. There is something almost like a groan at my lips; and I want to blame Damascus; I want to scream and rage against her question, and yet, my limbs are as weak as a newborn fawn’s. The floor feels as if it has fallen out from beneath me; and even Elena takes on an unforgivable edge, the sharpness of knife slipping swift between the ribs to kiss the heart.
Do I love them?
Do I desire them?
Is that not what drove me here? Love turned to hatred, lust turned to rage? Is that not why Cillian existed; why I had spent so many years trying to lose myself in other bodies, in loving other men, in trying to die on sandy beach full of war cries—and yet, the person I loved so much it hurt me, the person I desired to the point of turning all other love away, never fucking existed.
He had been a lie. A dream. And settling for the truth, for her, would have been like settling for a half of the whole. If I had not betrayed her, we would have ended the same; if not worse. I am full of anger with no direction. I am full of a sorrow that never ends. This is the impossibility, I think, of living.
It will hurt no matter what I do.
“Gods, please. Just take it away, Elena. Take it all away.”
I had been a god, once.
But I am only a man, now.
(That is what love does to the best of us; it transforms us into mortals; it imbues us with fear, with longing, with necessity. I had never felt fear until I had known the fear of losing him; I had never known longing until I had been faced with someone I could not have; I had never understood the limitations of my powers as a man, a mere man, until I was given a scenario I had no control over, no sight of).
Outside, it begins to rain. The storm that had been out at sea is hitting the cliffside in a sudden torrent of rain. Damascus groans, low in his throat, and it is the sound of an ending.
I had been a god, once. I had been a god of my own life; careless; too powerful. I could detail all the promises of my birth; how I had been my mother’s only son and my father’s only heir. That hadn’t been important, however; what had been important was the way that I would excel my peers physically and mentally; what would matter would be how I fought.
I had been a god, once, when I went to war. Nearly untouchable. When we went to war, we had both been young gods, drunk on triumphs, arrogant on youth. The first time I had been painted for battle, had donned my armor, grasped my spear—I had known I had been made for specific purpose, to lord over those fields of conflict, to meet with death and walk away.
I had been a god, once, when I had been young. A god who did not know love, or regret, or even hate; a vapid god, to whom life had been a series of predestined certainties. Decisions were made; but decisions didn’t matter, not truly, until—
Until I had nearly lost my life. Until the war ended. Until I was no longer young.
Drunk on Damascus’s magic, these truths come unbidden and full of self-deprecation; they are the truths of a man who has lived through something he shouldn’t have; who has gained a perspective the world never ought have lent him. The truth, the monstrous truth—
I do not regret what I did.
(It had been a necessity; to hate her, after her confession, had been a necessity. To love her, to forgive her, would have warped everything I would have ever known. I fell in love with my companion; with my brother in arms; with a man who had slept and bled and fought besides me. And she changed all of that, with her truth. She changed all of that, by betraying me first).
I cannot regret it.
I cannot regret it, because if I did, if I acknowledged my own monstrous betrayal; it would be the end of me. And instead, I exhale sharply. I listen to her, as she says:
We love to break things, don’t we? And then try to fix them, only to break them again. I have a habit of ruining all the good in my life—or, at the very least, taking the bad and making it worse.
The words are not so separate from my own experiences. These events should feel far from here, from now, from this time and place; instead they exist with us within the living room. Instead, they haunt me in the glancing shadows, where I see Boudika and Dagda, where my father lurks and my sisters laugh. Cillian is there, and Khier, young and unfamiliar. I want to be like you, he had said. But it was always Boudika—Bondike. It was always the person who betrayed me, who transformed all I had known into a lie, every soft memory, every hope of empathy or progress.
Do you still love them, Torix? Do you still desire them? What if I could take that away? If just for a moment?
I close my eyes. I cannot stand it. There is something almost like a groan at my lips; and I want to blame Damascus; I want to scream and rage against her question, and yet, my limbs are as weak as a newborn fawn’s. The floor feels as if it has fallen out from beneath me; and even Elena takes on an unforgivable edge, the sharpness of knife slipping swift between the ribs to kiss the heart.
Do I love them?
Do I desire them?
Is that not what drove me here? Love turned to hatred, lust turned to rage? Is that not why Cillian existed; why I had spent so many years trying to lose myself in other bodies, in loving other men, in trying to die on sandy beach full of war cries—and yet, the person I loved so much it hurt me, the person I desired to the point of turning all other love away, never fucking existed.
He had been a lie. A dream. And settling for the truth, for her, would have been like settling for a half of the whole. If I had not betrayed her, we would have ended the same; if not worse. I am full of anger with no direction. I am full of a sorrow that never ends. This is the impossibility, I think, of living.
It will hurt no matter what I do.
“Gods, please. Just take it away, Elena. Take it all away.”
I had been a god, once.
But I am only a man, now.
(That is what love does to the best of us; it transforms us into mortals; it imbues us with fear, with longing, with necessity. I had never felt fear until I had known the fear of losing him; I had never known longing until I had been faced with someone I could not have; I had never understood the limitations of my powers as a man, a mere man, until I was given a scenario I had no control over, no sight of).
Outside, it begins to rain. The storm that had been out at sea is hitting the cliffside in a sudden torrent of rain. Damascus groans, low in his throat, and it is the sound of an ending.
