24. In Those First Few Days
In Those First Few Days
Styx did not speak much to me.
I asked her where my uncle Pallas was.
She told me her husband was out hunting
and would not return for a while.
Then she told me never to touch
the water within her river if I wanted to keep my voice, for her waters
were known to destroy immortal voices.
Hades vanished after my mother left,
back to his godly duties towards his realm.
So I kept myself occupied by the banks
of Styx, among the skeletons
and skulls of what were once mortals,
who now lay on these riverbanks,
long forgotten and long dead.
I had only lived five years.
And this was how my new childhood
began – full of warnings and old bones.
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