The path down from the sky – my sky – lies slick with dew tonight. I stumble once as my sandals crash against the stones of the cliffside, cold and sharp beneath the soles of my feet. I have made this descent a thousand times, yet each step carries the same roughness: the subtle weight of a mountain resisting my every trespass.
In this hour, I wear the likeness of a woman barely past her twentieth year; my hair falls in golden waves to my waist, and my skin, flushed by the crisp mountain air, is warmed only by the folds of my silken silver dress.
To any ordinary hoplite across the ridge, I might appear only as some affluent daughter wandering from the safety of her walled city. Yet, as the owls fall quiet when I pass and the flowers tilt as though pulled by an invisible tide, the world knows as I do, that I am not meant for this place, yet I continue to wander unrestrained.
At the summit, I pause to steady my breaths, each exhale clouding in the night’s air. A small patch of hyacinths lines the cave’s entrance; I pluck one by the stem, carrying it with me into the mouth of the cave. The air inside is cool, dim, a familiar reminder that soothes my soul. My ears take notice of three unchanging sounds: the drip of water from the stalactites above, the rustle of the grass at the mouth of the cave, and the slow, deliberate rhythm of his breathing.
Endymion lies as he always does, the tide of his chest the only indicator to a passerby that he may still breathe life. A smile crests my lips before I can stop it, the satisfaction of drinking in his features never lost on me. Kneeling by his side, I let the urgency of our ritual fall over me once again, smoothing the silk of my gown as I arrive at his side. Even after countless nights, my hands still tremble incessantly when I reach for him. I let my fingers graze the hollow of his throat, where his pulse beats faint and steady beneath the skin, causing me to let out a breath I wasn’t aware I was holding. His mortal warmth thrums against my touch, and I wince at the sight of a life so physically near to me yet far beyond the reach of even a goddess.
I lift the foraged hyacinth and tuck it gently behind his ear, the violet petals stark against his pale complexion. My gaze lingers on the pure serenity of his features, and for just one instant, I let myself imagine the impossible: that he might open his eyes, that their deep blue would mix with my own silver gaze once more. Instead, I simply cradle his hand between my palms, whispering the prayer of gratitude I offer each night to the powers of the day for returning me to his side. Even in my desperate lamentation, I’m consistently reminded to give thanks for the small blessings.
Still, I resign myself to the Fates once more. Content with the faintest echo of his presence, I lie beside him and tuck the rough wool blanket over us. His head rests against my breast, my fingers threading slowly through his chestnut hair as if I was afraid to break him into shards. Each stroke sends the sweetest ache through me: he is made of mortal warmth and fragile humanity, yet beneath my touch he glows as though my light had entered him. I cup his cheek, turning his face toward mine. Moonlight from the cave’s opening dances around us, accentuating the line of his jaw, and I find myself simply unable to resist. I bend to press my lips to his, feeling the world shift before me.
When I softly retreat, the cavern is lost to memory. We now stand beneath an arch of constellations, their light spilling down in a silver curtain. The ground, pliant beneath our feet, shimmers like black glass and perfectly mirrors each star. My gown has become a cloud of vibrant light trailing my slender form; though my hands brush each perfectly fitting seam, I’m simply too transfixed by the sight in front of me to worry further.
Endymion – my otherwise-mortal lover – stands before me, awake, luminous, and impossibly, tantalizingly real. His hair, now unbound, tumbles in chestnut streaks across his brow. The hyacinth behind his ear glows a dizzying violet, bright enough to paint his cheek with a vibrancy that matches that of my own. He turns toward me, no trace of sleep left within his mind, and for a heartbeat I beg for this to not be a dream. His wide and sea-dark eyes meet mine, pulling me in with the orbit of a love that keeps me returning night after night. Though I know he cannot speak, the stars pulse above his head as if to donate their voice.
He steps forward, each motion sending small ripples through the mirrored ground beneath us, and where each foot falls, light flourishes like a whispered secret he’s doomed to never utter. I reach for him with a learned uncertainty, as if I’m unsure if the air between us will hold the weight. When our hands finally meet, the sky seems to surround our joined bodies; a ring of light encircles us, formed from equal parts smoke and halo, and the constellations of the arc rearrange into a canopy. I release a breath I was unaware I was holding, meeting that damning gaze once again.
As the stars settle above our heads, the black glass of the ground gathers itself into steps, creating an aisle that juts out over the peak of the mountainside. The breeze – nothing more than a quiet whisper – passes between us, the gown of my dress rustling softly. Looking over his shoulder, he takes my hand, leading me up to small staircase. When we reach the center, his still radiance nearly makes me stumble over my own feet. Each step I take spills the same starry luminance across the glassy surface, and as we approach the edge of the cliff, I take his hands in my own.
There was never a need for a crowd, a mortal officiant, a beautiful venue; all I needed was the sky as my witness and his eyes lost in my own. As my lips part, I start to trip over the words I’ve spoken no less than a thousand times, losing myself in the depths of his beauty.
“Endymion… my beloved dreamer,” I whisper with a fragility that feels more delicate than anything I could ordinarily conjure.
“If the poets of old are right, this world is bound by longing. The sea longs for the moon, just as the flame yearns for the air.”
I intertwine my fingers with his as I continue, memorizing every ridge beneath the pads of my fingertips. My voice drops to an intimate, near-imperceptible register.
“My love, I am no different. I am the moon and the vastness of the night sky, yet I am simply undone by the one who sleeps eternally beneath my light.”
At my words, his lashes give the faintest tremble, a breath slipping out before he can catch it. I can feel all that is unspoken, all he cannot produce from his throat, humming between us. I squeeze his hands tighter, my gaze never wavering from his.
“I have watched centuries unspool, their days passing with hardship, and still I come. I’ve watched as the kingdoms rise and fall, lovers part with one another, but still I find myself here, drawn by an indelible pull. Even as I become weary of my own worship—”
With those words, I falter. The tears threaten to spill over. His soft smile is all the reassurance I need to continue, and the curvature of his rosy lips soothes my soul like a balm.
“—even as I become weary of my own worship, I… I burn for you as though I were mortal myself. I have burned for you since that first night.”
My voice fractures once more on the final word, and I watch as the dark, mirrored surface beneath us ripples with each falling tear.
As I choke through the end of my sentence, I make no attempt to stop the lump rising in my throat. Can he hear me? The question simply lingers, suspended between our ragged breaths.
He does not answer, but his expression softens. I imagine the words he might say – keep going, I hear you – and the thought nearly unravels me completely. I inhale sharply, reeling myself back into the present. For his sake, I must keep speaking.
“You cannot speak, my love, I know,” I whisper, a hot tear trailing down my cheek before I may forbid it.
“You cannot wake to love me, and even as the heavens forbid it, I cannot stop returning to you.”
The way his thumb traces slow circles over my knuckles is a direct attack on my nervous system, but I will myself to continue.
“I would give the sky itself to trade one dawn for your waking. I would forsake the orbit of each moon that will ever rise for a single heartbeat shared with you in the morning’s dew. I…”
The sentence collapses under its own weight, and my tears once more fall freely, shining against the still, slender skin of his fingers. Hear me, Endymion. Please, hear me.
A broken laugh escapes me, watery and helpless. I sniff, brushing at my eyes with the back of my wrist. For someone of a goddess’ stature, the sight is utterly horrific.
“They call me goddess,” I continue, my voice growing softer, “but what goddess weeps for what she may never hold? Who am I for kneeling, night after night, beside the same ever-stilled man, pleading to be remembered?”
I press our joined hands against my heart. His warmth immediately seeps into my bones, an echo of the mortality I have never known.
“If being immortal means being subject to this incessant wanting,” I whisper, “then I would cast it all aside without hesitation. Let them have the moon, the heavens, every speck of moonlight. I only want this. I only want you.”
I bow my head, my lips meeting our conjoined hands. I feel them tremble against the cool surface of his skin.
“I vow,” my voice breaking once again, “to return until the end of the world, guarding the edge of your dreams even when loving becomes unbearable. When the last stars go dark, let the night remain nameless. I will still find you.”
I draw a slow breath and release his hands, the warmth lingering between my fingers like a hazy afterimage. My tears, yet to be shed, glimmer faintly in the reflected starlight, and I raise my gaze to his once more.
“This is my forever, my love. Not the cold eternity they once wrote for me, but this fragile, fleeting moment before dawn steals you away from me again. I would sooner die a thousand deaths than forget the shape of your face.”
The silence that follows my words feels charged, as if alive with the breath of the stars above us. Drawing back just enough to see his face, I see Endymion’s open eyes. They are neither waking nor asleep but glowing faintly with the reflected light above. In them, just for a moment, I could believe he understands each word I’ve spoken.
As my fingers find purchase in his again, the air around them begins to shimmer. The light trembles, as if spun from the most delicate glass, then gathers slowly and obediently around us. My eyes follow the way it spirals up from the ground, pulsing with the rhythm of our joined heartbeats. In an instant, it seems to form threads of moonlit silver weaving themselves into a single filament.
As the light glows brighter still, the filament it seems to draw in the air begins to harden. The strands turn molten white, and as it cools, it leaves behind a pair of matching wedding bands. They are simple in their off-white color yet unmistakably luminous, charged with moonlight.
I raise the first ring to his hand, the solemn spot on his ring finger vacant once more. I take a soft breath, closing my eyes as I speak, sliding the ring onto his finger.
“As moon to sea, as breath to flame.”
The ring slides perfectly to sit just below his knuckle. Without a word, he lifts the second ring to my ring finger, and I feel the warmth of the light encircling my hand.
“As heart to heart in endless night.”
As my ring settles into position, I take his hands in my own, raising my head to meet his eyes once more. The last of the ancient proverb ghosts from my lips, knowing our time is nearly over.
“I bind my soul to yours.”
When I speak the final words, our rings glow in tandem, displaying a simple inscription written in light: ἡ ψυχή μου.
Though his lips do not move in the moment, I swear I hear the faintest echo of a breath, his silent murmur of happiness reminding me that he would vow the very same. His hand rises, slow and certain, and traces its way up my wrist and arm until he’s cupping my cheek. He reaches to brush an errant strand of hair from my face, a simple and domestic action that threatens to ruin me once more.
It is that same utterly domestic action that sends the dream into fracture. I can feel the surface beneath us beginning to thin, the air growing heavier and more stagnant. Every strand of my heartstrings knows what follows: the careful, delicate kiss, and the end of our perfect fantasy. One lingering touch, and the illusion breaks, dawn finding us soon after. When I close my eyes, leaning into his palm on my cheek, I pinpoint two exact, recurring thoughts.
I should stay where I am. I should let the dream hold.
As my rational thoughts threaten to take over, he looks at me with such unguarded calm; even in sleep, I know he forgives me for what I will invariably do next. How cruel, that to love him fully is to lose him just as fast.
How cruel, that I have never been strong enough to resist.
When my eyes flutter open, I feel our breaths mingling on the tip of my nose. My hand rises to mirror his, pressing my palm to his cheek as my thumb gently caresses the stubble of his chin. Even as the dream slowly unwinds, I surrender once more to the pains of my heart, leaning in until I can feel the heat exuding from his lips.
Just as I part my lips to welcome his, the dreamscape shatters.
The same light that forged the ring, rapidly vanishing from my finger, surges through us. As the black glass beneath us crumbles, my knees buckle, sending me tumbling through the vast expanse of white light. I can feel the air splitting apart, my lungs gasping for another breath, and I let out a breathless scream – whether attributed to the falling or the scarcity of the gods, I will never truly know. I search for him as I fall, feeling an immediate vacancy against the skin of my cheek, and just as I find a glimmer of him in the distance—
Stone. The same cold stone, damp and mossy, upon which I took refuge in the evening. I feel the rough scratch of the weathered blanket draped over us, and the hyacinth I tucked behind his ear now glows in the daylight. I raise a trembling hand to the edge of his jaw, trying to reclaim the same warmth I once felt; instead, I am met with his clammy skin and careful breathing. His left hand, unmoved from the night prior, is bare once again.
As I groggily sit up, pushing the blanket aside as if it were some discarded child’s toy, I see the dawn’s orange hues crawling across the cave’s floor. Motes of dust dance around the mouth of the cave, a remnant of the fireflies from the dream from which I wished to never wake, and a small creek burbles nearby.
When I stand, gathering my belongings, I reach down to brush the same chestnut hair from his face, kissing his forehead.
“Sleep well, my beloved.” I choke out, caught between a sob and a smile. The simple benediction, carrying the weight of plenty more dreams to come, never leaves my lips without thorns. I drape the blanket over his once more, tucking him in as a mother would her child. It is the simplest of rituals, but it is one I simply cannot do without.
I pause at the cave’s mouth; outside, the birds grow bolder still, each call echoing into the vast valley below. Each note they sing reminds me that I am no longer welcome here, that the night has passed and the world is waking for the day’s chores. The horizon has caught fire since I have last witnessed it, the sky painted with dappled hues of red and orange. Sailor’s warning, I find myself thinking.
For a fleeting moment, I imagine turning back. I imagine the feeling of his warm body against mine, my hands stilling the dawn for but a moment more—
No.
The daily reminder of my limitations, of the extent of which I can accomplish on mortal ground, pulls me back from my desires. Even I am bound by the very laws I once penned: the light comes for all things, even a goddess who forgets her place.
As I traverse the cliffside, the heather brushes against my ankles, a dewy farewell to one who was never quite welcome. The shepherds will soon wake their flocks, the children will laugh in the meadows, and the lovers will meet beneath the shade of each olive tree dotting the horizon. Though I cherish the simple brevity of mortal lovers, I cannot help but feel envy. Even as the mouth of the cave disappears behind me, it is as though there is a wisp of light guiding me back to him, just as one may guide these two mortal lovers to one another. The wisp tells me he is safe, caught in the liminal spaces between mortal and immortal, waiting for the night to fall once more.
When I close my eyes, I feel my mortal form fading away. Each mountain becomes a simple hillside on the curvature of the Earth, and the breeze that once comforted me fades to nothing. As I ascend, my light stretches across the dawn, tracing silver filaments in the clouds that show me a way home. In the hollow of my chest, there lingers a simple, indelible warmth that does not fade, an echo of his pulse against mine.
“Wait for me.”