‘So, there was divine blood in him after all…’

‘So, there was divine blood in him after all…’
"The wedding was attended by all the gods of Olympus. However, Eris, the goddess of discord, was banned from the wedding. Furious for being rejected, she sought vengeance and decided to turn the guests on each other. Inscribing the words "for the fairest" on one of her golden apples, she threw it into the wedding. Immediately, there was an argument among the goddesses Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena over who was the fairest and who deserved the apple.
Not wanting to get involved in the goddesses’ squabble, Zeus suggested they choose a mortal to decide whom the apple should go to. The mortal they picked was Paris, the prince of Troy. The goddesses each bribed him in their desperation to get the apple; Athena offered to make him a legendary hero or general, Hera offered to make him the ruler of the richest and most powerful kingdom, and Aphrodite offered him the love of the most beautiful mortal, Helen of Sparta. Paris picked Aphrodite and gave her the apple.
After arriving in Sparta for a diplomatic mission, Paris won the heart of Helen and she left with him for Troy. Furious from this insult, King Menelaus of Sparta summoned the forces of all of his allies, each of which had sworn oaths to defend Helen’s marriage in order to be eligible suitors before she married the king. With a vast army, Menelaus and his brother Agamemnon waged war against the city of Troy."
Felix’s hands were clenched tightly into fists and he was growling through his gritted teeth. "The war was started because of the stupidity of the prince of my city and the arrogant pride of the goddesses?"
With sadness in her eyes, Serenity continued to speak. "During the war, the gods repeatedly intervened in the war. At least half of them helped the Greeks, due to the belief that Troy was destined to fall. Athena herself was responsible for the death of Hector and the interruption of the peace established after Menelaus defeated Paris, all because Paris did not give her the apple."
Shocking Serenity, Felix quickly got to his feet and stormed off into the meadow, where he gave a lion-like roar of anger while shaking his fists at the sky. "I studied you, I prayed to you, I worshipped you, and you are the ones that destroyed my city! You could have stopped the war or prevented it, but you allowed it to happen and you allowed everything I love to be taken away from me! You let it all burn for the sake of your pride and entertainment! You should have killed me when you had the chance, because now I’m going to get my revenge, even if I have to destroy Mt. Olympus with my own two hands!"
Serenity rushed over and wrapped her arms around his neck, trying to calm him down. "Stop it, Felix! Don’t anger the gods and tempt fate!"
"It is because of them that my home was destroyed and my family was killed! Gods or not, I will make them pay for their selfishness!" he yelled with all the pain of the war flooding through him once again.
He then gagged in agony and fell to his knee, gripping his leg to try and ease the pain ravaging him. His muscles were not ready for the quick movement he had made or the strain his emotions were inflicting on his body, and the combination had just caused multiple still-recovering tendons to snap, essentially crippling him. Felix gave another roar of frustration and helplessness, gripping his leg so tightly that blood trickled down his ankle from his nails digging into his skin.
Serenity crouched beside him, holding him tightly with her forehead pressed against the back of his neck. "Let it go, Felix. Please just let it go. I know you’re angry, but you’ll kill yourself if you cling to all this hatred."
"How can I let it go? How can I just forget about my family and Troy and let the ones who are guilty get away with it?! HOW CAN I ACCEPT THIS PAIN AND NOT FIGHT BACK?!"
"I’m not asking you to accept the pain, I’m asking you to open your heart and let there be inner peace as well. I didn’t want to answer your question because I knew you would get angry and all the progress you’ve made towards being at peace would be lost. If you let vengeance fill your heart and resign yourself to die in the futile attempt to achieve it, there will be no going back."
"I have to avenge my family, I have to avenge Troy, and if Nemesis herself will not punish the gods for their sins, then I will!" Felix countered, trying to stand up but instantly falling back to his knees.
"You can’t leave and die in the name of vengeance, you have to stay here and live! I don’t care about being alone anymore! I just want you to be happy and alive! I want to do whatever I can to make you happy and I couldn’t bear it if you left me! That is why I want you to stay. But if leaving here is want you want to do and will bring you solace, I will not stop you. Just promise me that if you’ll leave, you won’t die in the name of vengeance, but live long with peace in your heart.
I just want you to be happy, Felix! Live long and be happy! That’s all I ever wanted!"

Felix was lying on the moss bed, looking out at the nearby creek. Serenity was beside him with her hands on the area in his leg where his tendons had snapped. Her palms and fingers were glowing with a green radiance, and she was using her hands to send the healing energy deep beneath the flesh to repair the cords. Once the tendons were reformed, she removed her hands and sighed. "There, you can walk again, but you still need to heal so that they won’t just break like they did before."
"Thank you," Felix said, but without looking at her.
Serenity had a sad hue in her eyes, but mixed it with a tinge of determination as she took a deep breath.
Felix quickly turned in surprise as she sat on his lap, facing him.
"Serenity, what are you–"
She placed her finger on his lips and silenced him. Before speaking, she wrapped her fingers around his hand and clutched it tightly against her chest. "There is nothing I can do to stop you if you truly want to leave. I can’t keep you here as a prisoner or force you to forget about vengeance. My words can only go so far, so you must decide. But if you will leave me in your pursuit to kill the gods, then I ask that you do me one favor…"
She opened his hand and pressing it against her throat. "Kill me first, take my life."
The air was ripped from Felix’s lungs by her words and the unfathomable sadness they carried. Felix stared at his fingers, which she had pressed around her throat, forcefully putting her life in his hands. She leaned forward, pressing her forehead against his with her long silky hair hanging down and forming a canopy that almost sealed their faces in tiny world of their own, where they could do nothing but stare into each other’s eyes with their lips only a few inches apart.
"I’ve waited so long for you, I’ve waited so long to have someone here with me. I don’t want to live if I have to be alone again, my heart cannot withstand the pain of losing you. I told you not to forsake your life to escape your pain, but I must confess that not even I cannot follow those words, as I would rather die than be without you. Let it be now or let it be when you are fully healed, but if you really want to leave and face the gods, then let me escape the pain of your departure through the final sleep."
Her every breath was filled with emotions and tears ran down her face like melted silver.
Felix’s whole body trembled under the crushing sorrow in her voice and the horrible guilt of even facing such a request. In his heart burned the desire to avenge his family and city, but every fraction of a second that passed by in which he stared at Serenity’s beautiful face smothered the flames of anger, leaving only cold embers, stewing in a pool of empathy. Vengeance or Serenity, the choice had to be made, and Felix knew that it had to be made now. Taking a deep breath, Felix let the anger and pain in his aching heart finally slip away, abandoning his desire for vengeance. After taking another deep breath, he moved his hand from Serenity’s throat and placed both hands on her cheeks. The nymph’s eyes opened and she gasped as Felix kissed her on the forehead.
"I will never leave you and I will never harm you, I swear."
With a warm smile on her face, Serenity wrapped her arms around Felix’s neck and Felix held her slender body, both hugging each other tighter than ever in their lives.

Serenity’s eyes flicked open and she gave a tired yawn while stretching every muscle in her body. As soon as she reached outwards, she knew that Felix was no longer in the bed with her. Like a cat hearing the pitter-patter of a nearby mouse, Serenity perked up to the sound of deep breathing just outside. Giving another yawn, she climbed out of the chamber and looked around. Hanging from the branch of a nearby tree, Felix was panting as he did chin-ups with his back to her. A warm smile on her lips, Serenity stood up and plucked one of the fruits from the tree of her bedchamber and bit into it. She walked over to Felix with the juices of the fruit running down her chin, watching him try to regain his strength. She stood behind Felix, nibbling on the fruit while he continued to work the atrophy out of his arms, completely unaware of her.
Holding the large half-eaten pear in her teeth, Serenity jumped up onto the branch, swinging on and over it like an acrobat. Felix pulled himself up onto the tree limb and smiled as she showed off, before finally coming to a stop and offering him the fruit.
"Thank you," he said graciously before digging into its sweet flesh.
"So I see you have almost completely recovered."
"Not quite, my legs are still hurting, but I’m at least strong enough to get some real exercise. I’m hoping that working out will help me recover faster, plus, even though I’m going to spend the rest of my life here, I don’t want all of my muscles to become as weak as a baby steer’s."
The last sentence brought a particularly happy smile to Serenity’s beautiful face, and she expressed these warm emotions by kissing Felix on the cheek and making his face turn red.

The day proved to be a very restless one, as Felix took advantage of his progress in recovery to regain his strength in as many muscles as he could. While he worked, Serenity would sit beside him and they would talk as usual, or she would even join the routine and teasingly compete with him, just for the look on his face of when she would beat him. The day was finished with a long walk around the forest, with Serenity holding his hand and leaning her head on his shoulder.
‘One more day…’ he thought to himself, feeling only the occasional tinges of soreness as he walked. ‘Just one more day until I am fully healed.’

"Tell me Felix, what kind of poetry did you wish to write?" Serenity asked.
Night had fallen, and Felix and Serenity were in their tree chamber, having dinner. As usual, the meal consisted of the large pear-like fruits that overflowed from the trees. They were sitting on opposite sides of the chamber with a pile of fruits in their laps and the blanket over their legs. Gorging himself on the soft wet skin of the giant berry, Felix couldn’t imagine himself ever getting tired or used to the sweet addictive taste. He didn’t even miss meat or bread when he had such a perfect substitute.
"What?" he asked, pulling off the last scrap from the core.
"You told me that you wanted to become a poet before you joined the Trojan army, what kind of poetry did you want to create?"
Finishing one of the fruits, she tossed it out of the chamber, where it was quickly snatched up by a group of squirrels.
Felix looked up at the interwoven branches that formed the roof of the chamber. "When I was young, I experimented with several different kinds, but I never knew what I wanted to focus on when I became an adult. When I was a soldier, I spent much of my time between battles returning to poetry. Much of it was about fighting and the war, ballads, and epic tales of real and fictional heroes of Troy. But my favorite subjects were mythology, which I studied endlessly, and even love stories."
"Did anyone ever write any poems about you? You said you were a war hero."
Felix chuckled and looked outside at the moon and stars. "There were a few. One of them was written by my younger sisters, as a gift for me for my twenty-fifth birthday, just a few months ago."
Just as Serenity was about to lose her smile, Felix gained one. "Thank you, Serenity. Thank you for taking care of me. Thank you so much for all of your help. I am truly beginning to feel at peace with what happened. It will take time to fully recover from my trauma, but thanks to you, I’ve come farther than I ever thought possible, and I look forward to the day when I can put my past behind me and look to the future with you by my side."
At Felix’s words, Serenity’s eyes seemed to sparkle and her smile became so soft and tender, no words conceived by man could ever describe it.
"You are welcome, Felix, you are most welcome," she said with a tone that sounded like she was about to cry tears of joy. She then chuckled.
"What is it?"
"I remember when you told me that because of the war in Troy, no one dared fall in love for fear of losing whoever they cared about."
"What about it?"
Serenity chuckled again. "If no one was falling in love, then how did you get the experience in which to write your love stories?"
Felix gave a soft laugh and hummed before answering, choosing his words carefully. "I just wrote about… what I always dreamed it would be like."
He looked back at Serenity and was completely at awe from the smile on her face and her indescribable beauty. The warmth and care in her eyes was like a miracle itself. Felix and Serenity stared into each other’s eyes for several silent moments, and outside, it was as if the entire forest was as still and quiet as they were.
"I imagine our dreams were very similar," the nymph finally whispered.
Then like a cat seeking a warm place in which to doze, she crawled across the tiny den to Felix, where she moved under the blanket and curled up beside him. With a tired smile on his face, he wrapped his arm around her and kissed her on the forehead, then lied back before they both fell asleep.

The rain pounded the forest in a relentless torrent, forcing every leaf and blade of grass into submission under the weight of each drop. Serenity and Felix were curled up in their tree chamber, completely dry and warm. With a dull yawn, Felix held out his hand into the open and felt the rain. Unlike with the previous storm, this rain was incredibly warm to the touch, much warmer than he had ever felt, and every drop seemed like it was as large as a grape.
"I think I’m fully healed."
"Then will you dance with me?" Serenity asked with a tender smile.
"Now? In the rain?"
"When it’s raining is my absolute favorite time to dance. The rain is one of my favorite aspects of nature. No matter how bad things may be, when the rain begins to pour, all the sadness and grief in the world is washed away. It’s just so pure and soothing, and when I dance, I feel like I can release my soul and let the rain wash it the way it washes the land."
Felix gained a small smile. "Very well, let’s go out."
With the same smile, Serenity stood up and grasped his hand, pulling him to his feet. They stepped out into the rain, instantly becoming soaked as the drops drummed on their bodies. They moved out into the creek and began the sequence of poetry in motion to the rhythm of Serenity’s soft hum, with the nymph guiding his movements and Felix enjoying the chance to truly stretch his muscles. True to what Serenity described, a new sensation infatuated Felix’s senses as the rain fell down on them in warm sheets, one that he had never experienced before. To him, it felt like his soul was leaving its physical form and floating up into the sky above them, letting him look down on their bodies from a bird’s eye view. His limbs seemed to move without his directions as he forsook his human body for a transcended existence, as naught but a glimmer of light or a wisp of steam floating in the air.
He felt like the rain was passing through his soul, sending ripples and shivers through every aspect of his sentience. All the pain that had been tormenting him since he fled from Troy was now being washed off like dirt from his palms after a day of hard work. Serenity had healed his physical injuries and now the rain was healing his emotional ones. Felix still missed his family, but no longer did he blame himself for their deaths or have a hole in his chest in place of his heart. Floating and twisting through the sky as a transient specter, he looked down and could see Serenity’s soul leaving her body as well and floating up to him. With their flesh and blood bodies continuing to dance like empty puppets, their souls began to wrap and bind around each other’s, twisting like twin vines desperately reaching for sunlight.
This was it; Felix knew that this was where he was meant to belong. He was truly home. When he originally told Serenity that he would stay and never leave her, he said it because he didn’t see a point in leaving, as he didn’t think there was anywhere in the world that could make him happy and he didn’t deserve to be happy at all. But now, he didn’t want to leave because he was happy, happy to be living in this beautiful forest with Serenity.
Finally, their souls retreated back into their bodies, which were lying in the shallow brook in a tight embrace. Felix shook his head from side to side and gasped from the returning feeling of his spirit to its shell. Serenity just had a sweet grin on her face.
"You felt it as well?" she asked.
"That was the most amazing thing I’ve… I don’t even know what to say. Is that how you feel whenever you do this?"
"Yes, but the feeling is only half as jubilant when you don’t have someone to share it with."
Then she slowly leaned over and kissed him, filling every corner of his mind with a physical and emotional euphoria, a thousand times greater than the first kiss they shared.
"I love you, Felix. From a nymph, those words are meaningless, I know. My race is known for their sexuality, but it’s different for you and I. The way I feel about you, I could never feel for someone else. Felix, I’ve been lying to you. Almost every question I asked about your life, I already knew the answer to, even when I asked you your name. I have the gift of Outsight, and for the last decade, the only thing I have watched is you. Ever since I first saw you behind the walls of Troy, I felt something that I had never felt for anyone else: adoration.
I watched your life, your heart, your words, you actions, your emotions, and everything else that makes you who you are. You are a man who is willing to fight with every ounce of strength he has for what he cares about, a man that is willing to carry the weight of his family and city on his back in the battlefield, and yet a man with a heart so kind and pure as to be a poet. I could not take my eyes off you, Felix, not since the first day I saw you. With every day that I watched over you, my feelings became stronger and stronger. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I loved you with all my heart and soul. Every night, I dreamed of someday being with you, of being held by you in the bed we would share, and the warmth of your love.
On the night that Troy was ransacked and you fled, I guided you across the empty landscape. The Light of Outsight lets me see all of the world and it also let me reach out with my soul and link it to yours, drawing you to me so that we could finally be together. I love you, Felix. I love you in a way that I can love no other."
Her words shook his entire world, freeing him to finally say the words that he desperately desired to speak.
"I love you too, Serenity. I have loved you since the moment I saw you. Not only did you save my life, but you also gave me something to live for, and that desire is a treasure that I thought I had lost in Troy. I love you, Serenity, and I want to spend the rest of my life here with you."
The two lovers locked lips, kissing passionately for several seconds. Serenity eventually pulled away, shivering in arousal. "I saw you the other day when I was in the river, I saw you watching me. For so long, I have wanted you to see me that way, to be so exposed and so open to you. Now, I want us both to be that open, do you?"
"More than anything else in the world," he replied before giving her another kiss.
With a smile, Serenity rolled up on top of him, straddling his lap. With a coy smile on her face, she slowly pulled the straps of her dress off her shoulders, exposing her large luscious breasts. They seemed to be even fuller and more beautiful than he remembered, as perky and energetic as she was and with nipples like berries. They rolled over again, this time so that he was on top of her, and kissed for several seconds, letting their tongues slip past their lips and wrap around each other. After several seconds, he pulled away, kissing her several times on the cheeks and forehead. He began to move down, running his lips along her smooth neck, around her collarbone, and the middle of her chest.
With one hand massaging her left breast, he began tracing his tongue around the nipple of her right, making her moan and gasp in arousal from the stimulation. He wrapped his lips around the nipple, sucking on it like a drunken man trying to empty the last drop from his wineskin. He switched between her breasts, lathering them with his tongue, massaging them with his hands, and sucking on her nipples hungrily. Her breasts were so warm and soft that he wanted to fall asleep while using them as pillows.
Finally, he relinquished her welcoming breasts and continued to move down, dragging his tongue down her flat belly and licking the rain off her soft skin while he pulled off her dress, revealing her womanly slit. He wanted to taste her insides so bad that he couldn’t think straight, but he also wanted to savor this. Before he moved to her slit, he continued kissing her body, running his lips along her long smooth legs, while relishing the feeling of her soft skin with his hands.
After he had peppered her voluptuous thighs with his lips, he moved back up to her valley. It looked like a rose in mid-bloom and smelled as sweet. He finally reached in between the hot lips with his tongue, making Serenity arch her back and give a shrill whine of euphoria. He reached farther up, kissing her lips with his while he sampled her essence. Her arousal tasted like the juices of the fruits in the trees, sweet and addictively delicious. The inside of her slit was so warm and so soft that he felt like he tasted her innocent soul itself. With each flick of his tongue, Serenity would give another moan. As he orally explored the interior of her body, she was rolling her head from side to side, chewing on her hair, running her fingers through his, and gripping the riverbed for dear life.
Finally, he pulled away from her. He was done with mere build-up, he wanted to truly demonstrate his love for her in the only way a man could. He sat up and undressed, revealing his throbbing erection and making Serenity purr with anticipation. He suspended himself over her and they kissed for several seconds.
"Are you ready for this?"
Before replying, she wrapped her arms around his neck. "I’m not ready, I’m desperate."
He kissed her and grasped his throbbing manhood. He pressed it against the lips of her slit, taking a few moments to savor the anticipation and the intimate feeling. Serenity wrapped her legs around his waist and dug her fingernails into his back, moaning like a banshee from the feeling of him penetrating her. He slowly worked himself into womanhood, coming to a stop when he felt her hymen.
"I’m ready my love, take me," Serenity whispered in his ear.
Felix kissed her neck several times in response and pushed the entirety of his phallus all the way into her, rupturing her hymen and deflowering the sweet nymph. Serenity screamed in both pleasure and pain as he took her virginity. He pulled his manhood out almost the whole way, exposing her blood on the shaft. The liquid seemed to glow as it rolled off into the river. He slowly pushed himself back in, causing Serenity to give a second moan. Moving back and forth, he began to establish of rhythm, driving his manhood deep inside her beautiful body.
Just as they had danced in the rain, Felix and Serenity began to act out the sacred moves of intimacy, with their frames interlocked and their hearts more open than ever before in their lives. As the rhythm of lovemaking became more and more inscribed in their memories and muscles, their minds began to wander and take note of the sensations of their surroundings. In the midst of their consummation, their minds unraveled. As the warm waves of rainfall and the shallow creek held them and lapped at their skin, it felt like the ground was shifting beneath them. It was as if they were on the trembling ocean, but could not penetrate the surface. The rain fell down on them with gentle thumps and the waves of water flowing down the shallow creek were like a warm blanket, sealing them in pure bliss.
With the two lovers linked physically, they reopened the bond between their minds. Their souls again reached out and began to wrap around each other like serpents. In an endless number of spirals, their souls intertwined over and over again as they desperately tried to show the love they felt. It was a futile attempt, because there were no words or actions that could express how much they loved each other. The volume of their affection was incomprehensible. But regardless of the impossibility of that feat, the spiritual proximity they each felt with the partner of their heart was a form of emotional ecstasy that surpassed their parameters of understanding.
The two strands that were their souls began to unravel like string and split up into countless smaller threads. These threads too wrapped around each other over and over again, twisting endlessly as they made love. Their souls repeatedly dove into each other as if they were vapors, in a desperate attempt to fuse into a conjoined dyad of sentience. As every last barrier between them was broken, they began to break away from their physical forms. Felix and Serenity’s perceptions of reality were warped, as their senses were switched between them. Sometimes Serenity would view reality through Felix’s senses, then it would switch and Felix would perceive everything through Serenity, using her senses.
Felix could feel the warm rain running down his back, then it switched, and he could feel the water dripping off of Serenity’s eyelashes through her world of feelings. He could feel his lips against hers and could see into her beautiful eyes, then it switched again, and he shared her sense of touch as the water and wind kissed her skin. He could feel her heartbeat as he clutched her in his arms and he could feel his own heartbeat through her as they held onto each other for dear life. Serenity was experiencing the switching of perception as well, and was feeling everything through both her senses and Felix’s. With their minds being shuffled over and over again, Felix was amazed that their bodies were able to maintain the rhythm of lovemaking.
At last, they both experienced a simultaneous climax, and the physical joy overwhelmed their souls. Felix could feel thick jets of semen being launched from the head of his manhood deep into Serenity’s womb and the nymph’s beautiful body glowed with a breathtaking aura. Like when he saw her touching herself, the area around them reacted to Serenity’s climax. Branches and grass shifted and stretched, leaning towards her as they tried to absorb the vitalizing energy she was giving off. After what felt like hours, their bonded completion came to an end. They both collapsed, holding onto each other tightly and gasping for air.
"I love you," they both murmured.
Several silent moments passed by, in which only the running water and their rapid panting continued with the flow of time.
"I think it’s time for us to get out of the water and dry off," Felix finally said tiredly.
"As do I, I want to go to sleep, but only with you holding me."
Felix sat up and reached under her. With one arm against her back and the other under her knees, he picked her up, relishing the warmth of her body against his. Serenity buried her face in the side of his neck and held onto his shoulders as he carried her back to the tree chamber. He laid her out on the soft moss bed and got down next to her. With her back against his chest and his arm around her waist, Felix wrapped the two of them in the blanket. The second the sheet touched their skin, the two lovers could feel any chills from the water taken away and their bodies drying.
Serenity smiled and kissed him. "I love you, Felix of Troy."
"And I love you, Serenity of the nymphs."
Then Serenity rolled back over and Felix wrapped his arm around her, holding her close as they both drifted to sleep.