he stands within the temple of the gods, among the marble carved statues of what some might think the gods looked like. it’s strange seeing them now, in the flesh, standing in a circle. he can feel eyes looking through him as if he’s not there, as if he’s nothing.
he’s never been nothing.
he looks toward the statue of hera, toward the queen of the gods, ruler of the skies. they don’t make eye contact—how could they when she simply looks through him as if he’s not there. he’s the newest addition to the demigod’s, the newest to accept his birthright; he’s here because of her and it barely matters.
hermes is the one who brings the golden goblet filled with the ambrosia to him. even with his lithe movements, the liquid doesn’t move at all, as if magicked into the cup. he holds it in one hand and barely listens at the warning. he hears some things—it’ll unlock his powers, his potential, but it’ll do more than just that when accessing his divinity. there will be pain, thoughts.
he doesn’t let hermes finish before he raises the goblet up toward his mother—a silent fuck you for not paying attention to him—and swallows the fiery liquid down in a few gulps. it dribbles from the goblet down his chin and he pulls the goblet away and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
and then he screams.
fingers dig into his curls as he slams his eyes shut. there’s a splitting headache that feels like an icepick to his crown. “no, no, no.” he whisper chokes.
he’s plagued with images flashing behind closed eyelids—his mother and father fighting, the slamming of doors, the words he’s hardly even my son, his mother packing her things and leaving, time spent between two households, a new father figure, being told he’s got to stay behind because mom has a new family now.
“make it stop!” he cries out, eyes still shut. he feels something unfurling in him, like a fetter that he didn’t know he had being ripped away. everything gets too loud, voices that aren’t his own filling his head. a split second later, everything goes quiet, he can only hear the sound of his jagged breathing, like gravel against the bottom of a shoe. he clenches his fingers together and it’s like he can feel things that are around him—offerings to the gods, the goblet that he dropped, pieces of armor and weapons.
he lifts his hands from his head and throws them to the sides, sending the offering bowls flying toward the walls. even the statues of the gods vibrate as he opens his eyes and stares at his mother and then toward her statue.
his mother. a woman he knows barely anything about except for what he’s learned in school. a woman who, like who he believed to be his birth mother, wants nothing to do with him.
never good enough for love, never good enough, never enough. his own voice rings in his head as clear as day and he turns toward the temple doors and shoves, sending the doors flying open, teetering on the hinges before he makes his way out of them.
he feels overwhelmed. something inside of him is wild and he doesn’t know what it is. his divinity? his power? the tapping into it for the first time?
he sways on his feet as soon as he’s on the steps, tripping like a drunkard before he falls down, collapsing into unconsciousness.
his dreams are not the dreams he remembers, but the nightmares from his childhood coming back to haunt him.
but somehow, he survives the night. somehow, he survives the pain and steels himself.
an iron forged mind, power that he can now taste on the tip of his tongue.