Taceo

[Athena]

Taceo

It was not a peaceful sort of silence.

[Athena]

Athena slept.

[Athena]

This was not a bad thing. Athena liked sleeping, and the screams of the dead girl in the wall next to her bed sometimes didn’t let her get enough of it. This had been the case the night before.

[Athena]

The night before. Yes, the problem raised its purple, pimply head. It was morning. The sun was hiding behind darkly angry clouds, the snidgets chattered in their nest in the rafters, and gremlins mischievously knotted Athena’s ash-brown hair.

[Athena]

The air was tense with the impending storm.

[Athena]

Athena slept.

[Athena]

Taryt sighed. He loved watching her sleep, but she was going to be late for breakfast.

[Athena]

Athena rolled over with a mumble of, “Jiggeruffs.”

[Athena]

Taryt rolled his (figurative) eyes. That is, if Athena had been awake then she would have gotten the impression of an eye-roll.

[Athena]

Athena slept.

[Athena]

But not for long. Her mattress dumped her out of bed in a strangely emphatic way.

[Athena]

“Socks!” Athena screamed.

[Athena]

And blinked. She sat up slowly, but she knew she wasn’t bruised. Taryt could never hurt her.

Taryt Castle was in love with Athena.

“Taryt?”

A feminine voice echoed in Athena’s head, saying, “Yes?”

“I know the gremlins were knotting my hair, but is there any good reason why you woke me?”

A hysterical girl shrieked, “Bloody hell, we’re going to be late!”

She blinked once more. “Ah. Of course. Please don’t use a memory of Anise’s voice again. It’s rather unpleasant.”

[Athena]

Taryt used a calm boy’s voice this time. “Of course.”

Athena winced slightly. “Or Snow’s. It hurts, sometimes, when I’m not expecting it.”

An older girl tutted. “Oh, he’s not good enough for you.”

Athena closed her eyes as she stood. “I really don’t have a choice. Some things are tied at birth, and some knots don’t come undone.” She swayed over to the mirror and stared at her tired reflection. “…Taryt, do you think I should just give it up as a bad job and get dread locks? The gremlins are being very persistent. I think it’s a hint.”

“You do have a choice,” a determined man pleaded. “Choose me.” And then an old woman said, “I think that would look lovely, dear.”

[Athena]

Athena smiled a real smile, one that wasn’t dreamy at all. “All right, then I need to ask Rak what that spell is. And you don’t understand what I’m talking about. Every human is born with a red string around their finger that leads to the one they will always love. Sometimes they die before they find each other. The lucky ones don’t. I see the strings. Everyone's. The threads are everywhere.” She paused. “They’re rather pretty.”

Taryt used a little girl’s voice. “I know.” Athena felt an acute sense of age, of two thousand years of watching children grow and learn and laugh and cry and hate and die.

She didn’t like it.

“Please don’t do that, Taryt. I’m human.”

The little girl’s voice came again. “I know.” A mischievous man said, “It doesn’t matter. I love you.”

The sense of age was gone, and Athena very carefully didn’t grin at the castle's borrowed words. Who doesn’t enjoy being told they’re loved?

Athena hadn’t heard those words from anyone except Taryt in a long time. She knew no one else would ever say that to her again, excluding, perhaps, her father. It just wasn’t in her cards.