DUSK
BY MAGGIE
It was dusk already and still he couldn't bring himself to light a fire. The heat of the day had failed and he was already shivering with cold; the light was slipping away, too quickly, robbing his eyes of sight, his mind of any kind of safety. His heart was still at sixes and sevens, not knowing where it was going to attach itself next. It wasn't much of a heart, really, he thought; it never 'dared', because it had been broken so many times.
Stomped underfoot, crushed by carelessness ... Ha! That was an alliteration. To be stored away for future, less-serious use. It was one of many, many similar pieces of oddly matched furniture, tucked away in his mind; he'd collected them when he came across them, and used them when appropriate. If he was lucky they'd bought him some more time. Just a bit more time to stay alive or ... or something ...
As for his soul ... well, he was remembering lately, now that he had the time to, how it had been before, years ago, back before they'd died ...
Or at least, he was trying to. He'd been hoping that if he could just remember that time, free and clear, he could find the place inside himself where he could begin again, a foundation that he could grasp and make solid and build on, and become a better person; but he just couldn't get past the day they died ...
Everything had been alright up until that day. He'd had a place to be, a role in life that didn't make his stomach queasy when he woke up every morning. He'd had ... a friend.
And then they died and all that changed, forever.
Oh, gods, the anger, the rage, the despair ... he had run away and found himself a place to hide, not emerging for days, until he was sure that it was safe and the place was deserted. He'd buried them himself, weeping stinging, endless tears for their loss, and for the empty hole left by their deaths. It had been hard work, but no harder than doing all the jobs around the place and keeping everyone happy, had been. Once he had placed the last shovelful of earth, he'd set up crude grave markers, with little flowers etched into them, just a few on each marker, and the names, because he hadn't known what else to do.
Then he'd waited. He'd waited for four days to see if anyone turned up, but no-one did, so he went home to see if he could find his mother. He'd heard that she'd moved from Thebes, but when he got there, no-one knew anything, and most likely didn't care. Everyone was living in fear for their own lives, now that there was a crazy man on the loose, and no-one had time for one insignificant man who'd lost track of a family member.
"Aw, you're looking for your mom!" the blacksmith had mocked him. "Whassamarra, crybaby, ain't you weaned yet?"
He had just stuck his tongue out behind the burly man's back and gone on to the next town.
Eventually he did manage to find his mother, but she was married to a rich business man, and no longer cared anything for a son who had made nothing of himself, and whose only reason for wanting to find her, was because he'd had nowhere else to go.
He remembered crying himself to sleep under a hedge that night, because that was the only shelter he could find where he wasn't kicked out. He was getting used to the feel of big boots on his backside - another alliteration! - but it had still hurt, to have to face up to the fact that no-one wanted him anymore ...
He had been able to make just enough money not to starve.
It was during those days that the guilt had set in. If only he'd been there that day, maybe they mightn't have died. There might have been something he could've done; anything so that they hadn't died. He had a feeling even now, on this darkening, chilly evening, that if he could have saved his family for him, then Hercules would never have gone mad. Would never have turned into the Sovereign, and then all those people need never have died ...
His world could never be as happy as that of the other Hercules and Iolaus, but it would at least have been bearable. He might, at least, have been able to persuade himself to light a fire this night, to keep the darkness and the cold at bay; but he hadn't been there to save Deianeira and the kids and that was that.
Instead, he'd been off collecting a bunch of pathetic-looking wildflowers for that farmer's daughter who had looked at him kindly the day before. His heart had been leaping like the new lambs in the fields, no more, no less than a dog let out of the dark, empty shed, after being shut up for ... most of his life.
He still had the flowers. After he'd taken them to give them to the girl and found out that she had been married to another man in another town, that very morning, he had clung to them for nearly a day, wandering around aimlessly, seeing nothing clearly through the haze of his tears, except that his heart had been squashed, and it had been his own stupid fault really, and that he would probably never have such a chance again. He could make the women smile with his crazy words, make them laugh with his even crazier antics ... but they never beckoned.
Those flowers were all he had of one moment in his life, when a woman had looked at him and seen someone other than a pathetic clown, which, under the Sovereign's excellent tutelage, he had later become in truth, or so he felt. He had pressed the flowers with cloth and stones, and then had sewn them into a shirt, so that they laid over his heart.
He hadn't even known her name.
All he knew was that it was because of his wasted gesture, that he had not been there that day, when Hercules' family had died, and from that moment, the world had gone from bad to worst.
Now Hercules was the Sovereign; and the Sovereign was ... somewhere else. He didn't know where, but he certainly wasn't in this world any more, and the rebels were off celebrating, along with all the prisoners who had been set free days ago; but for some reason he just couldn't summon the heart to join them. In fact, he felt strangely bereft and sad ... and empty, and he couldn't figure out why. When the Sovereign had first become trapped in the vortex and he had escaped back to this world, his own world, he had felt liberated, and had gleefully gone around all the cells with Joxer, letting all the other prisoners out. Then everyone had gone mad with the sumptuous food that had been prepared for the Sovereign's wedding feast. To a man, they had stuffed themselves silly, until they couldn't move.
It was when they had started in on the wine, that he had begun to go into a decline. He shouldn't have drunk so much of it, he knew it only tended to make him melancholy. It had brought back all the really bad memories, and the guilt, and now somehow, instead of being able to shrug it off and go on with tomorrow in mind as a new day, he could only feel a weight of loneliness and guilt ... still the guilt ...
Oh, gods, would it never leave him!!?
A touch on his shoulder made him nearly jump into the trees which had begun to whisper frightening words in the dark.
"Iolaus?"
"Ares? I wasn't thinking too loud, was I? I mean, I didn't interrupt you in ... anything ... did I? I'm sorry -"
The god of Love produced a love seat out of nowhere and directed Iolaus to occupy one half of it. Then, seeming to make a great effort over it, he opened a window to a nebulous, stormy place, and focused on its only occupant. "There he is, Iolaus; he's not very happy right now, but he's quite safe ..."
Without even thinking Iolaus concentrated his gaze on the lone and lonely figure; he looked tired somehow, as if he had ranted and raved as much as he was going to, and had nowhere left to go except inwards with his thoughts. "Oh; is he really on his own there? How will he get out?"
The words were out and still Iolaus showed no realisation of his reaction towards the Sovereign. Another touch on the arm brought his attention back to the god of love. Ares was looking at him as if he knew something Iolaus didn't. Not difficult, he thought, morosely as he found his gaze returning for some insane reason to the tall, bearded man, sat just as morosely, staring into a pool of water. He seemed to be looking at something in it ...
"He can see what's going on here through that pool, apparently;" Ares told him, leaning back in the seat, his eyes never leaving his companion. Iolaus could feel those eyes on him and wriggled uncomfortably. "He's looking at you right now."
"Why!?" Iolaus squeaked, jumping up and looking around him, as if he could find the place from which he was being observed.
"Maybe for the same reason you couldn't take your eyes off him," Ares whispered close to his ear. "The same reason you feel lonely and guilty right now; there's no need to, by the way. There wasn't anything you could've done for his family; they died when the family of the Hercules from that other world, did - destroyed by Hera, so I hear."
"The goddess of Music!!?" asked Iolaus, astonished.
"Not in their world ..." replied Ares, mysteriously.
"So ... I ... don't have to feel guilty -" began Iolaus, wondering if he could really relinquish the weight so easily. "But you ... you said something about ... reasons?" This last came out quietly and he felt very wary about what Ares had been going to say.
"That's right, Iolaus. You know, he could have had you killed a hundred times over, during the past years; you know that, don't you?"
Iolaus had secretly wondered about this, over and over again; all the times he had had servants or prisoners executed on a whim, for far lesser reasons than Iolaus had sometimes given him.
"Well, yes, I know; and I don't know why he didn't. But he used to hurt me an awful lot ..." and remembering the pain, Iolaus shrunk into himself, feeling the surface of his skin tingle with remembered blows.
"I know that too, Iolaus," Ares remarked, seeming about to impart some startling secret. When it came - Ares leaning in close and whispering in Iolaus' ear - Iolaus was indeed taken aback by it. At first, he assumed that the god of love had hit the ambrosia a little too hard and had gone a little crazy, or maybe that he'd just misheard.
"He ... he loves me!!? Like a brother? Are you SURE, Ares?" Iolaus was fidgeting in his seat, extremely uncomfortable with the idea. "I mean, even if it's true, he's got a funny way of showing it; couldn't he have been a bit less 'demonstrative' or something?"
"I know, I know; the guy's got a real bad attitude, and it's a good thing he's gone from this world, I mean, totally! But he got some bad breaks along the way, ya know, and no-one dared to stick with him except for you, in case he went, well, you know, 'kerflooey' again!"
"But I ran away from him!" Iolaus reminded him. "When I escaped to that other world ..." Hat in hand, and greasy hair flopping in his eyes, he looked as he felt - totally miserable. It was all so confusing, what Ares was saying, that he felt about as bad off as he had at the beginning of their conversation.
Ares however, was about to drop the other shoe and, taking him by the shoulders, looked him straight in the eyes. "You ran, because Joxer asked you to kill him. Think about that."
"Because I'm a coward -" Iolaus began, the words a small cry of self-condemnation.
Ares shook his head. "No. Because you, in your own way, love him too," Ares revealed. Seeing Iolaus about to protest about this, he wagged a finger gently in Iolaus' direction. "Ah, ahh!! Who's the god of love around here? Who's going to know such things?"
"You, and you," admitted Iolaus grudgingly, to both questions. "But would you really call it love?" he asked, hoping for, at the least, some clarification.
"I gotta admit, it's twisted," the god announced sagely, "but this is a twisted world, Iolaus. Especially in comparison to that other world which you visited for awhile. From the way you described it to Joxer a few hours ago, it was a paradise compared to here. And even there, it seems, nothing is perfect ..."
"I suppose so," Iolaus acquiesced quietly, reinstating his hat over his lank locks, and rising from the love seat, thinking that maybe he was ready to rejoin the party now. Looking back at Ares, he found he had a request to make. "I don't suppose you could find a way of getting him out of that place, could you?"
"The Sovereign? Oh, no, Iolaus, it takes nearly all my energy just to find that place and open a window. It's between worlds and isn't really a safe place to go, not even for the gods."
Iolaus looked up at him and remembered the strain that had appeared on Ares' face as he held open the window to that other place. His face fell, and Ares, always a sucker for genuine heartache of whatever kind, relented. "I'll tell you what, Iolaus; I'll take a look in on him from time to time; see how he's doing, okay? You never know; anything could happen that we may never know about, and he may escape yet. So long as he doesn't come back here ..." he concluded, under his breath.
Iolaus perked up a little at this, and offering a tentative smile to the god of love, he muttered his thanks and then turned and ran off, back to the others, and to rejoin the party, feeling a little better about himself now.
Ares remained, still seated, chin in hand, thinking, for a few moments. What was it about dusk - that time of neither light, nor darkness - that made mortals so vulnerable? Something to do with the huge, amorphous ocean of emotions that they called their hearts, he suspected. That thought chewed on and put away, Ares - already looking forward to a little party of his own that he had organised - winked out.
Night descended, dusk fading into nothing for another day, and the dark, with its own creatures of the night, moved in.
~finis~
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