the five times huedhaut learns about love (and the one time he didn’t)
Or, the five times you fall in love with the gods (and the one time you didn’t)
i. Leon
Of course it would begin with the stalking lion -- in what other way does love begin?
He saw it coming from the second he saw her gaze flit to the haughty man. (He would see it end with her gaze on him, too.) Leon had smirked and swaggered and ultimately stood in front of the entire court in the heavens and testified that he would only ever learn to love from one woman.
Huedhaut quietly thinks that he, too, will only not only learn to love once, but twice, now. For in this version he is in love with her, too.
ii. Scorpio
Huedhaut knows the tale of the scorpion and the frog well. (And he is asked to live through this, this version of love?)
“And what if you sting me?” asks the frog of the scorpion.
“Why, then we would both drown,” replies the scorpion.
Scorpio protects her. He cares for her. But he also shouts at her, his anger ever-present and only slightly softened by this woman’s experience.
Huedhaut can only watch as the distraught man visits her every day for ten thousand years, and knows that in another story perhaps Hue was the one visiting her instead. But not in this one.
Because when she opens her eyes, the stars twinkling so brightly that it hurts his eyes to even look at, it is Scorpio she looks for first.
“Why did you sting me?”
“It was only in my nature.”
iii. Teorus
It is a finished story of a prince finding his princess the second the blonde man lays his eyes on you. Because his appetite is nothing if not monstrous, and Huedhaut was a fool for ever thinking that in this version perhaps he would be the prince.
And of course Teorus would stop time so you wouldn’t die.
And he hears your voices from down the hall.
“I’m going to die eventually, Teorus.”
Huedhaut despairs. But how am I going to save you this time?
iv. Dui
In this one, Huedhaut bites his tongue.
Dui had once learned love, and had been punished for doing so. And yet Huedhaut cannot help but fear for you the most in this story.
Because how can Huedhaut keeps you safe when at any moment, he can come out? The unpleasant version of a man who can’t control himself.
In this version Huedhaut learns not only love but also forgiveness. At this time he has seen many different versions of love.
He hopes that next time around you will choose him.
V. Ichthys
Mortality is painful.
There are daily reminders of it. Annual reminders of growing older. Decades in which you are officially named older than the last. Huedhaut has watched it all fly by, never quite knowing when Ichthys’s internal clock will finally strike midnight.
And in this version, he sees you fall apart.
He sees you beg for a childish god back, beg for another chance to be annoyed with a silly prank, watch you beg to heaven or hell or anybody who would listen to you.
In this version, he rests his hand on your shoulder.
“He’s gone.”
And he watches as you stare up at him, the stars shining so brightly in one of your eyes.
In this version, he wonders what you would do if he explained how to sacrifice your stars for your love.
vi. The one that doesn’t happen
He stands on the roof, watching your finger hover from god to god, shaking and so, so little and fragile. And he represses a smile because in this one he knows you’ll choose him.
“I,” you start off. All six gods watch in anticipation and Huedhaut wants to scream, to rip out the stars from his eyes and rip the heavens apart and start all over again. And then you finish it and he stops in his tracks. “I am sorry. But I cannot choose. I cannot help any of you.”
“But, you’re the ex-goddess,” Teorus protests.
“You need to help us, woman.”
And Huedhaut smiles wryly and laughs humorlessly, because of course there is no version in which you fall in love with him. He should have learned that by now.
There were five versions, eleven in total, in which Huedhaut learns of your love. Of course it makes sense that there is nothing left for him.
There are five versions, eleven in total, in which you fall in love with the gods. Of course you were too blind to see that just maybe there would have been a twelfth, too.