14. SOPHIE
Sophie was going to get up. At least that’s what she told herself several times over this morning. Funny how her world view had shattered into tiny unrecognisable pieces, and yet the sun still filtered through her curtains. The slight breeze still swept across her skin. The distant sounds of the Isle’s waterfall still trickled on. The world continued as it was, despite the storm that swept through her mind. She was everything she thought she wasn’t and still, she felt like nothing at all. Especially in this godsforsaken bed she wanted to desperately disappear into.
Cal let out a loud yawn beside her, pawing at her arm.
Breakfast time. More like lunch time given the position of the sun in the clear blue sky.
“Alright, alright, I’m getting up.”
At her words, Cal jumped off the bed and spun around on the spot for good measure before running to the kitchen. Sophie begrudgingly shuffled after him.
Upon the white kitchen counter sat a platter filled with fruits, cold meats, bread, and chocolate-filled pastries. At least she was being fed well here, or at least been given the option to. She hadn’t quite worked up her full appetite.
Sophie stretched and yawned, taking her time in moving around the counter to grab a bowl of Cal’s food.
She should’ve moved faster. She should have been more alert. Because as soon as her back turned, the guilty sound of Cal’s claws upon the kitchen counter sounded. Sophie whipped back around. But it was too late. From out the hellhounds mouth, hung several pieces of cold meat.
“Hey! I thought I could trust you! That’s my breakfast!” Sophie lunged for him, but the hellhound was too agile. He gulped the remaining cold meats and even had the audacity to sneak a chocolate croissant into his mouth.
Chocolate.
Sophie’s eyes widened. Her heart raced. She backed off, her hands in front of her, trying to calm him. “That has chocolate in it, buddy. Chocolate is bad for puppies. Very very bad.”
She swore the hellhound was snickering. Tendrils of smoke left his nostrils as if to say Ha! I recognise this folly. You cannot fool me.
Chocolate was poisonous to dogs. Granted, Calypso was a hellhound from a different realm, but still, Sophie couldn’t risk it.
They began to circle each other in the middle of the living room, a trail of croissant crumbs littering the floor.
“You’re a good boy, aren’t you Cal?”
Cal let out a single puff of smoke.
“And good boys don’t like tummy aches, do they?”
Cal stopped, his head tilting as he looked at Sophie.
She closed in on him. “That’s a good boy. Now give the poison croissant to me . . .” Cal inched in a few paces closer. “That’s it, good boy.”
Too much. Too soon.
Cal bolted from the living room, through her bedroom and into the courtyard. Sophie gave chase. “You little shit!” She jumped and dodged furniture, pain shooting along her sides. She wasn’t as fit as she used to be, but at least she could still move.
Before she knew it, Cal had jumped the entire fence, a trail of pastry crumbs clung to the shrubbery around the courtyard.
“You’re fucking kidding me!” Sophie was embarrassingly out of breath as she shot through the front door in nothing but a silk cami, shorts and no shoes. “CALYPSO! DROP THE DAMN CROISSANT!”
There’s chocolate in it, godsdamnit.
Sophie hollered and howled after him. He was darting all over the street, dodging her. And when she thought she was close enough to grab him, he ran up the steps to the villa whose owner she didn’t quite want to see just yet.
Of course.
The black door of the villa swung open. Acheron pulled back, brows ruffled in confusion. Not only was Cal bolting for him, Sophie was too.
“HE’S GOT A CHOCOLATE CROISSANT IN HIS FUCKING MOUTH!” Sophie shouted.
“By the Fates—” Acheron swung into action, chasing after the hellhound whose tail wagged furiously. This was a game to him. A freaking game!
Sophie jumped into Acheron’s villa, invitation be damned. Together, Sophie and the angel worked to corner Calypso. There was barely any croissant left in his mouth and yet, his furry black bottom wagged in the air as if he had a point to prove. They were a calamity, running around the room in silly circles. Lamps and picture frames crashed to the ground. Furniture screeched across the floor. As Cal cornered himself onto a couch, Sophie made a lunge for him. But clearly, Acheron had thought to do the exact same thing.
Their heads collided with a painful THUNK.
“Ah!” Like all of Acheron’s precious furnishings, Sophie crashed to the floor, bracing her forehead that pulsed with a heartbeat of its very own.
“Sophie, I’m so sorry!” Acheron winced, a tattooed hand covering his right eye as he reached for her.
“It’s fine, it’s fine! Get the croissant!” Sophie could already feel the swelling of her head. She’d need to ice it.
When Sophie thought her day couldn’t get any worse, the wet sounds of Cal choking on the dastardly croissant sounded through the room.
“Cal!” Acheron’s hands flew to the hellhound’s jaw, prying it open. “Sophie, I’ll hold his mouth open. I need you grab the stupid pastry out!”
Swelling forehead be damned, Sophie moved to assist the angel. She stuck her entire hand down Calypso’s throat, fishing out the giant wad of wet croissant. “I’ve got it! I’ve got it!”
Acheron let go of his furry friend. His furry friend who just sent them running around like fools. His furry friend who was, just a moment ago, choking on a poisonous croissant. His furry friend who now trotted over to the window, picking out the perfect sunspot to laze in, as if he hadn’t just sent them both into a panic.
Sophie gasped, the damning wet croissant remnants still in her hand. She looked to Acheron who sat on the floor, his breath beginning to steady and his face, equally incredulous as hers.
“Are you open to adopting a hellhound?” Acheron’s deep voice was still breathy, a laugh curling at the end of his question.
Sophie leaned back on one hand and lifted the croissant-filled one in the air. “Hell no! That’s your dog!” She bent her head back in burst of laughter.
Acheron’s wings fluttered for just a second before he joined in on the laughter with her. “I suppose he is.”
They stayed on the floor for a little while longer, surrounded by tousled furniture, broken lamps and croissant crumbs.
“I thought you’d be above this,” Sophie said, broom in hand, sweeping up crumbs from Acheron’s living room floor.
“Above cleaning?” He stood a few strides back from Sophie, a steaming mop in hand.
“I mean you’re a guardian angel in the freaking Godlands. You’re part of Zeus’s Aerial Legion. Doesn’t that make you . . . some elite being?”
“No, I’m just a lieutenant in the Tienthan, but that doesn’t mean I can’t get my hands dirty. We made a mess, and now we’re going to clean it.”
“Don’t you have servants that do this?” She gestured to the glass strewn across the floor. “Being holy entities and all that.”
Acheron laughed. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we don’t have servants here in the Godlands. Sure, there are people that cook by trade, but they aren’t servants by any means. Everyone on the Isle pulls their own weight and we help each other out where possible – no matter what rank or holy being you claim to be. Plus, who needs servants when you can manifest things with a click of your finger? It’s small acts like this, cleaning after you’ve made a mess, or after a cooking a big feast, that remind us that with every action or inaction, there are consequences, being holy entities and all that. How else are we supposed to stay grounded?”
Sophie hummed.
Interesting.
The room crackled with questions that longed to be asked.
While Sophie didn’t face him, she could feel his presence behind her. It was like a sixth sense that told her his exact whereabouts. Her memories of him. Of Acheron. Their past. They started to eat away at her and perhaps getting it out of the way now, rather than later was for the best.
She turned to face him, leaning her chin against the top of the broom that she was using. It took her a few seconds, but she drummed up enough courage to ask, “We know each other, don’t we? Before this, I mean.”
At her words, Acheron stilled like a predator trying to conceal itself. He stopped sweeping the floor. He turned to face her, mirroring her posture. His chin rested upon the top of the broom, though given his height he had to bend down a significant way. They were now levelled – eye to eye. “That we do,” Acheron said softly. He searched her eyes, as if waiting for her to say something else.
“Acheron Taranis. True son of King Gydeon and Riviera the Kind.” Sophie tilted her head with a soft smile. It was almost a question, but not quite a statement. She noted the lines of his face, his smoky eyes that watched her intently. The telling scar that ran across his brow and cheek from . . . the fall he took as they played along the river as kids. With each day that passed in the Godlands, he looked less and less like Kaine. He looked like himself. He was Acheron. Ash.
“Sofreya Brighid Taliesin. Daughter of Lou Taliesin, Right Hand of the late king and Danna Taliesin, Goddess of All Lands.” He tilted his head just like she did and smiled. “Took you long enough.”
Sophie paled.
He knew exactly who she was. What she was.
Her heart stilled. Why hasn’t he said anything before this?
Before she knew what she was doing she dropped her broom and closed the distance between them. Her lips wobbled as decades-buried emotions made their way to her chest and through the tears in her eyes.
Ash’s words of recognition broke her and mended her at the same time. He remembered her. Her best friend. The boy with moving turquoise eyes that she loved so much. The boy she cried out for as she was ripped from her home. The boy who promised to find her. He remembered her.
Sophie embraced Ash across the middle and sobbed. For the first time in a long time, she felt seen. She never realised the amount of numb anguish she’d armed herself with since stumbling across realms and learning her truth – until now. Everything came rushing through the flood gates.
Fine. She didn’t have all her memories, but she had enough to know that he was her best friend. He was the faceless and nameless soul she pined after for her entire existence without really knowing why or how. She knew now. Her memories had been wiped clean but the feeling and connection in her heart remained. It was his connection. Their connection that she searched far and wide for… one she would never find unless she crossed two realms to him. To Acheron.
Ash enveloped her entirely with his wings as she wept and whimpered. The gesture made her feel safe and secure. She’d finally found the other end of the never-ending tether and the relief she felt was beyond profound. It felt like she was levitating, walking on clouds even.
“It’s a lot, I know,” Ash repeated softly, rocking her side to side.
Moments passed but Ash continued to soothe her until her breathing evened and her eyes dried.
Sophie didn’t let him go.
She looked up at him with her swollen eyes and pouted. Her voice shook with emotion, and she sniffled. “I don’t have all my memories. The last thing I remember is calling out for you in the river of Faery.” She cleared her throat, pausing. “I’m thinking . . . maybe we’re better off with a clean slate anyway.”
Some words were left unspoken. She would not be retrieving her memories from the Stagnum De Memoria. She didn’t need to or want to. To be frank, it scared her.
Ash stilled.
Sophie felt his heart race.
He swallowed before saying against her ear, “Whatever you want to do Sofreya, we’ll do.” Ash continued to rock her back and forth, his arms around her upper back.
The use of her real name was a precious gift. It was a bittersweet feeling that she’d savour for a long time, along with the feeling of this moment. Safety.