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 Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 4:56 pm
The moon hung over head like a bright disk of seashell, shining her silver light down on the darkened earth. Zeus stared up at her with a perplexed expression, his orange ears perked and his black tail twitching in agitation.
"Artemis, Lady of the Moon... Why do you weep so?" He said, feeling as though he were only partially solid... as though the barest wind would blow him away. A drop of silver gathered at the edge of the disk and fell to the ear, splattering into a puddle of glowing liquid. With a sigh, the orange male bent his head to lap up the moon's tears, feeling a chillness seep through his both, enveloping him in lethargy.
Turning his head, Zeus frowned up at the sun that floated in a bird's egg blue sky. He seemed to dance before his very eyes, turning and twisting, lashing out with arms of fire. "Apollo, Lord of the Sun, why do you laugh at your sister's sadness?" He asked the sun solemnly, sitting very still as those streaks of fire feel all around him, caressing the earth like a lover. Where the fire fell, flowers sprung into being, lifting bright red and blue faces to the warmth of the sun.
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 5:04 pm
Zeus gazed solemnly down at the flowers, watching them skitter about on the ground, dancing among the stalks of soft grass. His face was starting to hurt from the unaccustomed expression and the weight of the gods' gaze on his head and back. He felt his insides turning liquid, melting and sloshing inside of him.
"Demeter will be upset if you take her daughter, Apollo... And you'll never hear the end of it from Hades." The orange and black lion said, his words taking on a fuzzy sort of quality. Everything was starting to run now, streaks of dark and bright blue sliding down the sky and mixing to a strange muddy grey.
"I don't... don't want to... go away..." Zeus gasped out, struggling to pull himself from the sink hole that was sucking at his hind legs, threatening to pull him down into its cloying depths. "I haven't... haven't found her yet...." Even his thoughts were starting to blur into one another, mixing in a strange way.
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 5:11 pm
He was falling! Falling down and down and down... the sea was crashing below him, growling its hunger for his singed flesh. His body was on fire... melting and burning... and yet he felt no pain. Part of him knew he had flown too high and felt the fear of death, but at the same time, it was as though he was untouched by all of it. Was this really happening? Part of him wondered.
With a roar, the sea opened wide its mouth full of sharp rock teeth and snapped shut as he fell between them, enclosing him in suffocating darkness. He was floating... floating in emptiness and he despaired of ever seeing light again. There was so much he hadn't done, so many women he hadn't wooed, that hadn't felt the warmth of his touch... so many places he had been and things he hadn't see... Regret flooded his soul and he cried out his pain to the pitiless moon, begging Artemis to have mercy on him, to bite the clinging vines around his legs with her silver teeth and rend them apart.
"Set me free! I want to be free!" Zeus cried.
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 5:20 pm
The sound of wind in grass pulled Zeus from darkness to a place were dark and light had no meaning, save as a reference for this in-between state. The sky blushed a deep purple shading to red at the edges and no angry god rode across its vaulted depths.
What was this? He thought as he pushed himself to sit up, wondering in the back of his mind about the lack of pain he felt, at how smoothly his muscles moved beneath his orange fur. The wind brushed his face again and he lifted his muzzle into it, wonder filling him like the tears of the moon.
A soft sound behind him made him turn and he blinked at a dark lioness that padded up to stand beside him. Perhaps it was light that made her so dark, because for a moment he thought he saw a gleam of rich blue and green... but it was soon gone and she was but a shadow lioness once more.
"Greetings to you and good health to yours." He said with a deep bow of his head. Zeus had a feeling politeness was called for here. One never knew when the gods would take disguise and walk beside you.
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 5:35 pm
"What are you looking for, Zeus?" The lioness said, her voice deep and grating, as though worn from long disuse. "Why don't you go back?"
The male frowned at her question, turning his head away and staring off into the twilight. "I'm not ready yet... there's too much I want from life to return yet. I refuse to constrict myself into such a tiny space as their expectations give me." His lips curled in a snarl as he rose to his feet, feeling lightning crackling through his mane, darting off the ends like snakes that snapped their fangs in defiance.
"I am the thunder-bringer! I'm am Lord of the Sky! They can not hold me and I refuse to be contained!" He snarled as he turned back to her. His whole form glowed softly now with that electric light, streaks of fire flashing down his length. The dark lioness never moved, but she seemed smaller somehow, less of the threat she had appeared only moments ago.
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 5:42 pm
"Is that the end of it then?" She said, her seeming that of a wraith now... a shadow with barely a form or substance. "You will disregard your place, your duties, your heritage? And for what... so that you can go dancing across the savanna while we languish? If you are truly the lord you think you are, you would reclaim your honor... you have none now."
Zeus snarled, lighting arching from him to the ground, the rocks and nearby trees, scorching them. The lioness was gone though, the area empty of the source of his wrath. He felt suddenly smaller, weaker... the light of the heavens had deserted him, if it had ever been there.
"Mother...?" He mewed, his voice quavering with tears. Gathering his tiny cub paws under him, he trotted in the direction the lioness had stood, feeling an overwhelming sadness that threatened to drive him to the ground. He was so alone... so empty... everyone was gone forever and he would never get them back...
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 5:48 pm
The large orange male woke with a gasp, his chest heaving as he sat up to stare wide-eyed around him at the star-filled night.
That dream... his heart was pounding, but he couldn't remember if it was in fear, anger or loss... or some combination of those feelings. What had he been dreaming about to affect him like this? A soft sound behind him made him start and he whirled, half expecting to see some shadowy form behind him, but it was only a soft cream lioness sleeping at his side, her luminous blue eyes closed in sleep.
A huff escaped as he rose to his paws and left the den of brush they had shared for their little interlude, shaking himself all over when he had the room to do so. Why had this dream been so intense, yet left him with nothing but a vague uneasy feeling? He had never been one to dream much and he now wished it had stayed that way.
Was this a prelude to more dreams, or simply a night terror brought on from exhaustion? His plan of sporting with the lioness in the den held little attraction now and he had no qualms about simply disappearing into the night. She was no one to him, merely a fancy he had taken... there were a thousand more like her, and none of them filled the aching hole he felt suddenly yawning in his chest.
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