Years into decades, decades into centuries, everything that ever was to be, unveiled to her. The rise and fall of empires, of peoples foreign and queer, of cities of mud and metal alike – all of it was hers to witness. The tumultuous concert of human progression, tampered, aided and stunted, in a whirlwind of divine portension, from the loom of the Fates to the front of her mind. It was often far too much to bear. And so it was since her youth.
Reflecting upon the sorrow of her past, as her master disrobed, she remembered all of it. The dreams, those horrid dreams, which soon became realities. She remembered all of it. Princess, she was, to proud parents and twin brother. Another life it seemed to her, before the night with Loxias. Yet she remembered all of it. When Delphinius came to her as she lay in his temple, she remembered the hesitation. She remembered the spurning of her suitor, not of pride but fear, an action innocent, yet assumed arrogant. She remembered the rage then, the scorned Helius, and the true curse that would haunt her for the rest of her life, and the rest of eternity. All of it, she remembered.
The worst of it was being forsaken and ignored when she tried to disseminate it all. All she saw and all she recalled, she tried to voice all of it. Met with disbelief and ridicule, obstinate and willful people of Ilion, of Troia, of Truva, the wool of a petty god over their ears – cursed, they ignored all of it. Every warning unheeded, every plea denied, she watched it all come to fruition. Every calamity, no matter how small, would happen as she dictated. All of it, unfolding in life as in her dreams, and every one forewarned and disregarded. News of far flung lands, of famines near at hand, of fleets converging and her other brother’s prideful mistake. Of the war to come, of the death to bear, of the false gift of peace…
When her home had fallen to the invaders, her supplication was desecrated. Clutching Pallas, crying to those fickle gods, she found no solace, no quarter. Her constant, unwavering faith, even in light of her curse…unrewarded. The lesser, he was, the commander of the Locrians, he that stole her virtue on that sacred ground. Painful and vicious, the sorrow of her plight lessened only slightly by the knowledge of his impending doom. He had moved within her then, as her master did now, spilling his seed with a conqueror’s conceit, with only his pride to blame for his damnation. His body lay cold at the bottom of the sea. She lay moaning, warm in bed with a king atop.
Despoiled as she was, she hadn’t shed a single tear when she was sold to her master. Her own death sealed then, as she had seen. Her sons, doomed to the same fate, only for their fathers’ name. Their fathers’ wife. The hypocritical jealousy of a scorned cheat, cast upon her, driving the queen to murder. No. Not quite that far, not alone. There was another, she saw. A man with the blessing of Astrapios, twisting the mind of her masters’ wife. She saw why, understanding that her curse, her gift, was too much to account for. The grand designs of a greedy man, predicated on the simple expedient of ending her precious life.
Watching her master dress, describing the forthcoming meal that she, in her head, had eaten for years, she considered the life lived cursed. Every action she took to thwart the future was inconsequential. The futility of her existence made clear from the very beginning. Her life was one of immense sorrow, grief, and madness. And it all stemmed from him, god of all ways, but only Death’s to her. He had destroyed her, her love of old…and no mistake, she had loved him. Worshiped him. Prayed…but had not asked for it, not for the gift nor for his affection. The failings of innocent presumptions, of ideas of mercy in light of The Light. Her fatal shortcoming.
As she slipped into her gown, she knew her sons laid in their cradles, blood pooling around their lifeless bodies. Everything they could have been, staining the swaddling clothes meant to keep them safe and warm. As she walked to dinner astride her master, she knew his breaths to be numbered. Noble warrior and king, soon to be butchered. As she approached the altar to sacrifice, one final time to silently beg for peace, she knew the queen’s lover approached with ax in hand. When her master cried out as he fell, she felt the hot tears stream down her face, her frustrating life finally at an end. And when the ax bit into her skull, she saw Elysium.
