A/N:Hi, this is all Shahni's fault, and hence, dedicated to her. Originally planned to be a little drabble. Ha ha, guess not, huh? This thing grew into a monstrous Venus flytrap. Spoilers for the Disney version of Hercules, I guess, so, you know, look out for that.
morning glory
It isn't planned.
They meet by accident over the bottles of olive oil and rose-petal aphrodisiacs, in the marketplace of Thebes with carriages running each and every way underneath the smoky, disastrous sky.
They meet by accident in the shadows of the Cadmea, her eyes the color of irises and his the color of morning glories. She is smaller still in his shadows as she introduces herself, and he introduces himself, and she curls her hair round her finger, suddenly starstuck, shy, and he tells her she's the fairest maid he's ever met.
Maybe she sees a little curly-haired boy, giggling in the shadows from beneath his mother's skirts, eyes mischievous, arrows drawn.
Or maybe she doesn't.
All Megara knows is that this man, this wonderful handsome man is too good to be true.
He's the greatest thing to ever happen to her.
---
She falls, hopelessly, and quite lawlessly, in love.
Aphrodite's spun her silver magic around her, and the whole world seems to spin in so many spectrums of colors around her. She dances down the streets, clouds at her feet, his flowers in her hands.
She soars so high you'd swear she had wings, and the whole world looks so perfect from far away. People tell her to come back, to try to focus, but how can she when her heart's spirited away?
She brings him home to meet her father, for of course she has every intention of marrying him, of surrendering all she is to him.
And his name, oh, his name, she sighs it like a prayer, like a devoted temple virgin to her god: Aurilam, Aurilam, Aurilam.
She couldn't ask for anything more from him, he's perfect in every single way.
He brings her morning glories just before dawn in the place between the hills that's soon theirs.
He tells her she's beautiful and that he will protect her from the shadows they hear about in the distance: horrible things that came from swamps, the results of nymphs mating from darkness or so they say.
"They won't ever hurt you," he promises, on the honor of Zeus. "Nothing's going to harm you, not while I'm around."
---
And one day he tells her he'll never leave.
At first, she's almost afraid to believe it. She's seen what's happened to other girls, who had their boys say that, only to disappear without a trace.
He says, in a faraway voice, I'm not like them, my little love, my pet.
Megara. Megara.
You know I'm not.
And he kisses her hard to swallow her protest, leaves her lips swollen bright even after he walks away.
---
She dreams much more often now.
But when she does, they're bad dreams. The shadows are only coming closer, sweeping their way over Gaia, or that's what the seaside widows say.
And in their wake all they leave behind are more of themselves, little twitching shadows that melt into the ground.
Fairies' accomplices, likelier than not, armed with charms and spells from the Underworld or a thousand other things; whatever they are, they are something to be very afraid of.
She dreams that they take Aurilam away from her, tear through wind and time and space and spirit him away, so very far away, farther than Olympus, to a place she couldn't reach.
They take him away.
And they kill him.
She tells him as much and he holds her in his garden, the morning glories dead around them, and he tells her, "Nothing's going to harm you, not while I'm around."
---
The dreams aren't stopping, though, and since Aurilam has yet to make her his, she begins to worry.
Others may call it obsession. Obsession, because she's starting to think that every time he holds her, every time he kisses her, every time he says goodbye to her could be his last.
She tries focusing on other things, like her sister's new child, her niece Antheia, or her mother's lessons in cooking and cleaning and spinning pictures into thread and preparing to be a good wife.
But she can't escape it.
---
To stave off the bad dreams once and for all, she lights a lantern and makes a long journey that's more than she can handle. She travels over cliffs and under valleys calling out a name, requesting the presence of Hades, the Lord of the Dead.
And so she waits, falling heavy under shadows, and calls out his name. O mighty Hades, she chokes out, tears in her orchid eyes.
Please, please.
Hear me and answer my prayer.
I have no one else to talk to. No one else can help me.
Please.
---
She waits for a very, very long time in the darkness, her lantern long since gone and goosebumps marching across her skin. She has waking hallucinations, nightmare faces rolling in and out with the tide of her fevers.
And then, just there, the light, or lack thereof, shifts.
The Lord of the Dead arrives in smoke and fire, his smile like cracked mirrors and eyes like an imp's. He wraps his dead fingers 'round her small shoulders and smirks and says to her, Now you know how Cassandra felt, huh, babe?
She swallows and nods. She remembers Cassandra's story, and her fate: to always see things, but to have no one believe her.
Hey, simple problem, really, says the Lord of the Dead with his jester's smile and arched eyebrow bones. Your soul for his, and you get to stop worrying so much. No more bad dreams. Just you and him. And maybe baby makes three.
'cause that's what you want, isn't it, Meg?
It's all she's been bred to want, all her sixteen years. All she needed, she was told, was happily ever after: a prosperous marriage looked upon with favor by the gods.
Going once, the god singsongs.
She needs the wedding, needs to be married in order to be a respected member of society. Over the three days it will take for her to be wed, her life will change forever. And there's no other man she loves as much as Aurilam, there's no man she will ever love as much as Aurilam.
Going twice.
It takes a moment for her to find the words.
"I'll do it."
And the God's hands are icy death on her skin, cold and sealed and dead like a body in a coffin, a body just flowing down a river.
"Looking forward to seeing you soon, babe," whisper the broken-mirror teeth, and in another shiver of smoke, he's gone, leaving Megara with nothing but a delayed end, a promise to delay his death just a little longer.
Long enough for her happily ever after.
---
There will be no happily ever after.
The little bitch in question was a pretty thing, she has to admit later. She was very, very pretty, with eyes that shone like stars and hair bright as the sun. A cultured pearl among Theban women.
Megara does not and will not remember a name to go with that damned pretty face. (It helps some days, to make it hurt less.)
It was no wonder everyone loved her.
It was no wonder Aphrodite's been said to pale in comparison to her.
It was no wonder Aurilam left.
It was no wonder Aurilam ran after her to offer his heart to her.
It was no wonder Aurilam went to marry her.
Aurilam, who had Megara, and who could have any woman, chose the porcelain doll. He chose a rare beauty, instead of the girl who sold her soul and her eternity for his sake.
Meg can't believe she did something like that.
All for her heart, her stupid heart that cried out when she learned he was going to die.
I loved you, I loved you, she yells, though he will not hear
And that's how you pay me back.
That's the way our story ends.
---
It isn't planned.
It was supposed to stop there.
It's been days, months, years since her heart was broken.
She's grown older and wiser and bitterer, eyes cold like ice and Hades' hands, and a weight heavy on her shoulders: a lifetime of servitude locking her away.
She wasn't ever going to think about him again; she'd sworn off manhandling.
It's simple; it's an accident.
It's one of Hades' new associates. It's making for stormy weather; she can feel the clouds gathering somewhere near Mount Olympus. Zeus will throw a few lightning bolts their way before the day is done to hail in this new problem.
It's a man who commands her attention; a man with no heart and a wicked smile who says his name is Marluxia, and kisses her hand like he's the greatest thing she'll ever find.
"It's an honor to meet you, Megara," he says, and looks at her with greed, lust, with things she recognizes, but will not acknowledge. He offers her a morning glory, an innocent little flower.
And oh, Gods have mercy, it hurts, it hurts.
But only for a moment.
She regains herself and crushes the bloom in her hand. Nectar, sickly sweet, gathers in the spaces between her fingers.
In response he grabs tightly onto her, poison in his eyes and his skin sharp like untamed leaves.
She's almost scared, but she knows he won't try anything, not with the Lord of the Dead here. Not with her owner here.
"The pleasure's all yours, Marluxia," she says with a pretty little smile, wincing as she breaks her hand free from his.
Turning to her master, she snaps at him: "I work alone. You can keep all your little imps to yourself."
And she walks away from the man who's Aurilam, her Aurilam, walks away from the man who is Aurilam, and who isn't.
She walks away from the man with Aurilam's eyes and face and name all mixed up, walks away from the morning glory smile she has to forget all over again.
---