by Logan Keys
“She is lovely. He has been kind. But you have done all of this yourself, Thanatos. And your home is beautiful, though I despise it at times as a prison. You understand what I mean?”
“Yes.
“I have been a fool,” she says pulling away, touching her brow. “I am lonely, yet you dine alone. I do not ask to join you and I do not want to, mostly. Because it is as if I succumb to this prison sentence and….” she lifts a finger, “I have not!” She thinks for a moment “But I don’t want to be hateful to you. My sweet, sweet, Thanatos. Because you are not hateful. I doubt you understand hatred. I only am bitter. If I tried to leave…” She looks at me with hope, and I swallow having been afraid of this moment.
I confirm her fears. “I would have to lock you in, Gaea. I don’t wish to do that. You would not be able to leave your rooms again. Ever.”
She nods her head as if expecting such. Then she frowns, the trust withering and dying under my regard…
It’s not because I think Gaea should be punished, quite the opposite. What if someone took control of her power and used it on an innocent? How would she live with herself if an angry immortal used her hand to murder someone like Persephone… her children…
I put a hand on her shoulder. “It is of little consequence, Gaea. If you are angry with me, it is of course to be expected.” I smile halfheartedly. “After all, who wants to dine with death?”
Gaea
Thanatos, beautiful Thanatos. He is accepting of quiet solitude and acts a wraith in these halls. His room is where he pretends to sleep, and his dining area is where he always has a small spartan meal alone. Always alone. He stokes a fire though I know he is not cold, and he reads more than he does anything in a quiet library, even the clocks have been stopped. And to enter his study is to enter the loudest of silences, it hurts the ears.
Only one area is not silent, and that is where he trains. A god does not need training, but again, Thanatos is not what I had expected. He trains fiercely in his room of weapons and I find my hands itching to grab a sword and spar with him. But the minute that thought enters my brain, it falls away again.
To embrace this life is to embrace my imprisonment.
Rather than thinking of myself, I focus on his life, and how strangely set apart it is. He rides out for his work and returns. Otherwise, no dogs, no women, no visitors, nothing.
I am in the main room now, looking at some of the paintings he’s chosen to hang here. They mean nothing to me though the artistry is stunning. The people look nothing like him and I have no idea if there is even a connection. It is as if he said, “I must fill this hall” and so he had. With little thought to the effort. With little joy to the choosing.
Again, I feel saddened at his solitude.
There is one painting that catches my eye at the end of the hall and I stop to see that it is himself when younger. A strapping boy of black hair but with normal coloring. And so, he had not always been destined as death. He had been somewhat normal. For a god that is.
There is a book left out on the table. Lords of winter. I lift this and begin to read. Here is a list of the winter lords from the beginning of time. The keepers of the cold.
Learning of the god-lands has given me a headache, so I close the book. “So why be a god at all? Are you not a King, Thanatos? Why not have a harem of women here? Why not have slaves and be their brutal master?” None of it makes any sense. If you have the power over life and death why be so good? I stand to pace at the thought. “Why would you live alone? Is it because you’ve always been the younger brother? Used to Hades being the one with all the attention and so now, you’ve got no plans for yourself?”
He’s married now, Hades is, and perhaps that had never been something either of them thought would happen. And then I think about how if I were still in the living world, my brother about to be married, would I too have been in an empty manor, struggling to decide what I should do with myself?
I wander to the mirror. “Thanatos,” I say and the mirror shimmers to show him in his cloak, no scythe this time, only a sword at his side. No chains. He looks terribly somber.
He is in a village that looks familiar to me. I watch as he enters a small home and takes the stairs to a room. There is an old man there and at first, I think it is he that Thanatos has come for, but he draws back his hood and waits in the corner of the room, watching.
The old man moves revealing a small girl in the bed, face blotchy with fever.
“Not yet,” the man whispers, and I know Thanatos has shown himself to the family.
The little girl’s head tosses.
“Just one more night,” the old man pleads, grabbing his granddaughter’s hand, tears filling his wizened blue eyes.
Thanatos nods his dark head. “Let her rest,” he tells the old man. “Have you eaten?”
The man looks taken aback but then he shakes his head. Thanatos nods toward the door, and I watch as the man follows Thanatos downstairs.
He appears as shocked as I am when the god of death himself digs through their cupboards and pulls out bowls and a pot, before he grabs some meat and vegetables. Slowly, he prepares a meal for the old man of soup. “Tis nothing special,” he says graciously, but he gives the man some bread with it, and after the first bite, the old man closes his eyes enraptured. “What did you put in this?”
“A dash of this or that.” Thanatos shrugs good naturedly.
Then Thanatos takes a bowl and sits himself across from the man. He sips the soup.
Thanatos quietly asks, “Have you always been her caretaker?”
“Yes,” the man says, eating slowly. The side of his mouth lifts. “You know, she was the most difficult baby.”
Thanatos smiles. “Was she?”
“Yes.” The man nods, the humor lighting his face. “She would get into everything. She could escape any crib that we built. And she loves sweets, you know?”
It went on like this for some time. He told all about Helena, that was her name, and Thanatos listened, truly enjoying in the hearing. The man would break down at times, crying, then bringing himself back from that pain with soup and more stories.
My own tears came and went along with him as I watched the entire night until sunrise.
Thanatos too saw the sun, and he stood, putting the bowls away and waited at the foot of the stairs.
“Is it time?” the man asks.
At Thanatos’ nod, the old man goes to the little girl’s room. Her eyes flutter open and she gives him a happy look that freezes on her face. “I love you,” he says, and she blinks one last time before she is gone.
The old man gathers her into his arms, but I can see her soul next to Thanatos, her small hand in his, watching, curious at the sadness in the room. “It didn’t hurt,” she says, looking up at the giant in black standing next to her.
Thanatos, now invisible to the old man turns to her, squatting down with a smile. “No. I expect not. You’ve been ready for quite a long while.”
“I suppose so,” she says.
The mirror shimmers and the scene falls away. I know what happens next, and my emotions are overwrought after just one of these long nights of duty for the man who owns this manor. My heart is clenched with sadness for him, because for him, this is his life. I could barely handle a moment of what he endures forever.
I turn away, dashing the tears from my eyes. I know after he’s worked Thanatos does not come straight home with the underworld on his skin. He usually takes a day to either do more work, or, he must spend time somewhere that smells of wood and smoke. Perhaps he takes to the wilderness to be free of dying people.
Either way, I know I have time to prepare. I had watched him lovingly cook for the old man, and I think I should surprise him with a meal as well. Who is it that cheers up the god of death that is trying to cheer others?
Only… I don’t know how to cook.
There is food plenty but Thanatos uses his powers to create the actual food, or so I had thought. Seeing him c
ook in the kitchen of the old man’s home, perhaps he had been making me meals every time by hand. How ungrateful I have been!
I pull out what I think are the ingredients for a roast, and I pack that onto the meat spit and place it over the fire, wiping my hands.
I grow weary of watching it cook and fall asleep. When I wake, I sense that I am in the bowels of hell.
Thanatos
The manor seems on fire when I arrive, smoke billows out of my door when I open it. “Gaea!” I call, racing for the kitchen, certain that I’ll find her half burned, perhaps trying to do anything to get away from me.
I douse whatever she’d been cooking with water, and turn around to find her at the table, face covered by her hair. Fast asleep.
I throw open the windows thinking she’s been affected by smoke and then smile when I instead hear soft snoring. She’s inhaled smoke, but she’s no longer human. Although this was rather domestic. Cooking.
“What is all of this?” I ask her, gently lifting her from her chair to take her to her bed. “You could have burned down the manor.”
She drowses and then wakes. “I’ve ruined the dinner, haven’t I? Is it too burned?”
“To a crisp. Hades would be proud.”
She frowns but doesn’t try to leave my arms. “I’m so sorry. I wanted to cook for you.”
I climb the stairs. I could just move us with a spell to her rooms, but I want this time to last. Instead of her attacking me with her sensuality, this is much better. I love the feel of her curled against me like a sleepy kitten. Even if it had taken a fire to get it.
She links her arms around my neck. “I can make us something. Try to use my powers.”
I shake my head with mock fear.
She laughs.
“I’m not hungry,” I say.
“Aren’t you?” Gaea quirks a brow and rubs my chest. Then her eyes fill with some emotion. “I saw you. With that little girl.”
I avoid her gaze supposing she must think I’m a monster.
But she presses her fingers to make me look back. “It haunts you still,” she says. “I wanted to make you dinner, Thanatos. I wanted to do something nice for you. And I ruined it.”
She pauses in thought as we wait on the threshold of her room. I place her on her feet reluctantly. “But, why?”
“Me.” She touches my hand. “I am the one who dines with death.”
I’m wary of her affection.
She frowns. “You think this is me trying to control the situation, don’t you?”
I nod.
“Perhaps it is.” She touches her brow, then walks around me to my rooms.
I gape after her. “Come,” she says. “I can’t do the dinner, but I can help you with your cloak and things.”
I can spell them but I bite my tongue, following her. It is as if I am entranced.
Slowly, Gaea’s gentle hands move to my belt. Then undo the buckle and remove my sword. She puts it in its place, and then she undoes the sash for my cloak. This too, she removes, but she does not stop there. Meticulously she removes all of my clothing until I am bare before her.
“I thought it only fair. You have seen me aplenty.” Her voice is tight as her gaze sticks at my chest before finally moving on with excruciating slowness.
I swallow as her eyes trail my limbs, my chest and finally my waist. Her color has risen by some levels over the time it takes for her to finally meet my eyes.
“Get into bed,” she says, her voice husky, and I am unsure of the wisdom of this moment, but can’t seem to stop the motion of my body, or the need and want to please her in any way I can.
I have only been her guard and jailer, I need to be something else for once.
She rises onto the bed, straddling me, lifting her dress, and I cradle her face. “Gaea,” I say and she hushes me with a warning in the shape of my name. “Thanatos.”
But something comes over me and I want this moment to last. I cannot rush the flame that is this woman because she might combust. And she cannot rush me because I will not let her. Everything in her life has been by command and brute will.
Every step of her life was a warrior’s call, knowing that time was running out.
But we have an abundance of it now. Infinity.
“Sit with me,” I say. “Talk with me.”
I arrange the covers between us and she leans back, clearly surprised. She does not move off my lap. “What about?”
“Anything, Gaea. I don’t hear much of your home, your life before. Your cooking history.”
I smile, and she shakes her head in frustration. “I’m no good at keeping a home. Cooking. Baking. Cleaning. I can’t do a damned thing most women can.”
“But you can use a sword.”
“I can ride astride as well as any man. I miss my horse,” she says with a sad expression.
“What was your horse’s name?”
Still on top of me, Gaea is animatedly speaking now about her favorite mare. “She’d only been able to foal once, and we lost it.”
I touch her thighs with both hands, and they are bare, with her dress scrunched up around her. “His name was Oreck,” she says on an inhale.
“A good name. A stallion then.”
Pulling my hands to her waist she toys with the patch of hair on my chest. “Oreck was black as night. You’d have loved him.”
She leans down, mouth hovering. Imploring me to do something
“You can ride,” I say as she moves her hips to show me.
“Yes,” she whispers near my mouth. “I can.”
My strength fails me a moment and I grab Gaea and pull her to me, mouth hungry for hers like I’m a human, starved. And I suppose I have been… for passion of this nature. When the women of our lands want, they want so completely, but when you expect a connection, most often they don’t have that to offer. It has always been this way with immortals.
But Gaea is not one of us until recently. To her own mind, she is human. Tragic. Flightless. Falling so easily into our traps and snares… Human.
She matches my intentions, pouring out her homesickness and pain like we’ve lanced it open.
The feeling of it shakes me to my core. What mortals do, the inclination to expend all into one bout of lovemaking, a fight, even a good night’s rest, that is not how an immortal is wired. If I took her, I’d want more and more, and then what? The bitterness would surely rear its ugly head some day when she realized she’d never been given a choice.
“What? Why?” When I press her away, and rise to my feet, using a spell to clothe myself, she is watching me angrily, breathing heavy, on her knees in my bed like a tiger ready to attack.
She is such a pretty picture that I have to force myself to keep going, to flee. At the door, I turn, and can’t help but smile at the fury radiating from her. “Have you never been rejected, Warrior princess?”
“Don’t call me that.” Her eyes steel. “I am a god-weapon now.”
She uses her power for the first time to slam the door in my face.
Thanatos
The more infuriated Gaea is, the more I play the game of reserved and uninterested. I am not surprised she’s turned this into a hunt, because as with all warriors, a bored one can be quite a problem.
She sees my lack of interest as a challenge. Little does she know, I wake from sleep, mind numb from having imagined being with her in every way possible through my rest.
I am beyond infatuated and gladder more than ever that we have not coupled. She sees this as a short sighted challenge, but I realize now, after thoroughly examining myself, that I do not. If I play this game with Gaea, I play for keeps. I don’t pretend it isn’t worrisome that I should be lusting for my ward, because that is what she is, my ward. I am her protector as much as her guard, and in worse terms, a jailer. It is through her imprisonment that she is protected. If she where to understand her actual predicament with me as a guardian, I fear her ego could not quite handle that. She has protected herself, and even her brot
her, a greatest of warriors. She does not do damsel in distress any better than rejection.
I smile when I hear her feet stomping down the stairs toward my library. She wants me to know she’s angry with every move she makes. And she is well practiced in the loud sigh, harrumph, stomping feet, and the best and favorite, throat clearing.
She throws open the doors, not unlike what I’d heard she had done at the banquet in the underworld. Now that she is safe… in a way, I can laugh at the image my brother gave me of Gaea, dressed in his stolen black armor, barging in with blaze and glory, the flames of vengeance licking at her heels. She’d threatened Zeus again. Hades has said he’s never seen a sight quite like it.
If only they could see poor Gaea now. Fat with sitting. Lusciously overflowing from her gowns that she claims are a size too small. I don’t have the heart to tell her that food from magic doesn’t need to be eaten in such high portions. She refuses to train in my training room and I think that’s probably because it would remind her she has no use for it anymore. What battlefield will she get to use her hard work on?
No, she’s turned round in all of the good ways, her hair lustrous from care, and her skin soft from oils and things Persephone has sent to give the poor woman something to do. I can tell those things are new to her, but she has embraced them out of sheer boredom and hostility toward me. They are now an arsenal, these womanly things, set upon me in my own home.
And she is cleverly breaking me down with every move she makes.
Woman…. even as a god-weapon, why in all the lands did she have to be a woman? And quite a woman at that. They could have made a man into a god-weapon, and at least I’d have healthy conversation. Instead, Gaea refuses to speak to me—oh but throwing herself in my bed, now that she’s not above!
As if she can read my mind, Gaea’s glowering at me, acting like she’s looking for a book, and her chest heaving in yet another too tight, and too revealing gown. I now wonder if Persephone has been made a handy ally to our war.