Chapter 5 #2
I buried my face in his shoulder and tried to pull myself together.
It would be unhelpful to waste our time on depressing, uncontrollable facts of life.
I’d rather spend it some other way. Pressed against him like this, perhaps?
Feeling the heat of his hands on my back and his breath in my hair?
Smelling hints of warm spices against his neck, his skin so close I could kiss it if I…
“Fuck,” I moaned, and I sat up quickly, letting him go so I could put my head back into my hands.
Gods, I was such a mess. Hiding my face, I peeked over the tips of my fingers, searching for something with which to cover my churning emotions.
My eyes landed on the basket I’d packed up with festival food.
“Um, I…I brought food for you,” I mumbled.
Thanatos gave me a funny look and seemed to debate something to himself, eyes sparkling, words barely restrained.
Mercifully, though, he decided not to point out my flustered demeanor.
Instead he leaned back against the bench, flattening his wings out so that they spread more prominently behind us.
He arched a brow. “Interesting. But I told you before that I do not eat.”
“Actually, you told me that you rarely eat,” I corrected. “There’s a difference. Besides, this food is special. I thought you might enjoy a bit of mischief, given where I got it from.” I cracked a slight smile, and he mirrored it when realization dawned upon him.
“You invite Death to your blessed offering?” Thanatos snickered. “Oh, but I do enjoy this. Do you not shudder that your crops should fail at the very suggestion?”
“It’s a risk I’m willing to entertain,” I teased, opening the basket.
Within were plates and linen napkins, along with sorted remnants of my city’s feast: flat bread, spread, and preserved cuttings of the ceremonial meat, along with a selection of figs and pitted olives.
I regretted that I’d been unable to steal away with wine as well, but I couldn’t have done it without revealing my bruised face to more of the temple staff.
“I do not think this a risk that your elders would allow,” said Thanatos. “Nor your sisters, for that matter, if they knew of it.”
“Well, I’m the one who’s met you,” I countered, setting out the plates and beginning to assemble them. “They haven’t.”
“You think yourself so perceptive as to weigh a blight against your judgement of my character? Hubris is the downfall of man, you know.”
He had a point. But luckily for me, he couldn’t see the flicker of indecision wash over my face, turned toward the food as I was.
I recovered my confidence and finished my assembly of the small meal.
“Come on, Thanatos,” I goaded. “Don’t tell me you’re not tempted.
Or do you think someone else would be bothered by this? ”
I looked back at his face and tried to read his reaction, just in time for his stoicism to crack into bright laughter.
“Clever mortal!” he praised. “It is not my character you question. You intend to gauge my knowledge of the Olympians’ omnipotence.
You want to know if I think they’d know I was eating their ritual food. ”
“I intended to make you smile via delicious irony,” I quipped back. “But I will not deny that your knowledge would be a welcome bonus for my efforts.”
“You are too feisty by half. I suppose I shall acquiesce, then, for the sake of my own amusement.” He accepted the plate from me with a barely audible chuckle and examined its contents. “Well, then. Does anyone know that you took this?”
“Yes. But I’m a priestess. It’s my right to take of it.”
“I see. And no one knows that I am here?”
“Definitely not.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes,” I insisted. “I told you I would keep us a secret, didn’t I?”
“Indeed.” Thanatos smiled unevenly. “Well then, I believe we are safe to partake in a small act of sacrilege. As far as I am aware, other gods should not be alerted if not through someone’s prayer.”
I reflected his smile, basking in my minuscule victory.
“Excellent! In that case, I will simply avoid calling down my own destruction, and we can continue.” I set my plate into my lap and raised my stack of bread, spread, and salted meat to my mouth.
“I promise it’s quite good,” I encouraged before taking a bite.
After a final, cursory examination of his plate, Thanatos followed suit, chewing in silent contemplation. “It is tasty,” he admitted at last.
“You don’t seem especially convinced.”
“Give me a moment to warm up to it,” he suggested with a shrug.
“Eating requires a particular mindset for me, since I do not feel the sensation of hunger.” He dutifully took another bite, closing his eyes this time, and an intrusive thought informed me that his long eyelashes looked strikingly picturesque.
I distracted myself from it by munching my own food.
As it melted in my mouth, I pondered instead the implications of what he’d just told me.
“I know well the pangs of hunger,” Thanatos added, breaking my train of thought. “I have felt them in the memories of countless souls. The sensation is foreign only to my own body.”
His perceptiveness surprised me. “How did you know what I was thinking about?”
“You were making a face.”
“Oh,” I grumbled. Of course I was. The corner of his mouth twitched upward.
“Do not worry, clever priestess,” Thanatos reassured me.
“I find your inquisitiveness endearing, and I am glad to partake of your offering. You may count yourself among the few who have ever shared a meal with me.” He took another bite, as if to demonstrate renewed interest in the concept of eating.
I followed suit, finishing my main course and moving on to the olives.
“Since you approve of my interest, perhaps you will entertain a new theory of mine?” I ventured.
“Oh? This should be good. Let’s hear it, then.”
“It concerns prayers. I think the gods need to be listening in order to hear them,” I postulated.
“Why do you say that?”
I fought to keep my expression neutral. “Well, I think you would have mentioned it by now if you had heard me last night,” I said innocently.
My words garnered the reaction I’d hoped they would. It was probably best for his image that Thanatos rarely ate, because he didn’t look so menacing at all when gawking at me with a mouth full of food. “What?” he coughed out, swallowing his last bite awkwardly.
I released the giggle I’d been holding in. “I prayed to you in the temple,” I told him. “Incense and all.”
He picked up his napkin with an air of sudden caution, and dusted off his hands. “But why?” he pressed, sounding far more incredulous than I’d expected.
I shrugged. “Everyone else was calling to their patrons. I thought you deserved some reverence, too.”
“Is Apollo not your patron?”
“Technically, my life was dedicated to the Olympians as a whole from the day the temple claimed me,” I corrected. “I gave each of them their due as a part of our ceremony, Apollo included. Yet when the time came for private rites, I could not help but think of you.”
I had meant for this revelation to be lighthearted, but Thanatos pulled back from me, suddenly moody. “Why do you flatter me so?” he asked, his tone half aggressive and half broken. “I may like you, Cyrie, but I will not spare you. You do understand this, yes?”
His words were harsh. Blunt. It pained me to hear his voice laced with suspicion. “I am under no delusion of such things,” I insisted. “The only thing I want from you is your company, Thanatos. I promise.”
I watched as the tension in his shoulders softened, though his air of melancholy remained.
“Then…forgive me for my severity.” He looked me over, bit his lip, and then scooped my hand into his own.
My pulse quickened. “Despite what I have said, I do not wish you to come early to my wings,” he professed.
“Apollo is the guardian of prophets, yourself included. He is vindictive, and he is not fond of me. You are in great danger should he become aware of our…” He cleared his throat. “Of this.”
“That is why I have told no one about you,” I assured him. “I will be fine. Though this is the first I’ve heard of Apollo not liking you.”
“Does anyone like me?” he deflected sardonically. “Besides you, for some unknowable reason?”
“Why do you need more than me?” I quipped, trying to brighten his mood. “Surely one idiot oracle is enough to soothe your ego.”
He laughed, and the usual luster returned to his eyes.
“Indeed. I require nothing more. In fact, allow me to expound upon your original theory, dear oracle, as a matter of penance. You suppose that the Olympians must be awaiting a prayer in order to receive it, yet you base this notion upon an observation of me. It is fallacious.”
“Oh? And why is that?” I encouraged.
“Because I am different to them.”
“How so?”
“I am a primordial concept, unbound by the emotions that shackle them and unswayed by the pleadings of gods or men. I cannot be fickle. Hence, it stands to reason that I may not be able to hear prayer the same way they do.”
“Being steadfast does not imply a profound difference, unless you mean to say you are without the agency to deviate from your patterns,” I debated.
“I have agency,” he scoffed. “I simply do not have the same inclinations. You could hardly catch me being fed fanciful things atop the clouds.” He helped himself to an olive as he said it, and I swallowed the urge to snicker.
“Yes…you rarely have the inclination to eat, as you said. Just as you rarely converse with the living; yet here you are, sharing a snack with me. If you’re truly bound to concept, then why did you return when I asked you to?”
“I told you. I was curious.”
“So Death can be curious, then. Why not indulgent?”
“Indulgence is not in my nature.”
“You’re indulging me right now,” I contended. “Or is this still curiosity?”