"You would forfeit your salvation, for her, after three hundred years of suffering?"
The voice which speaks is calm and gentle but distinct with a familiar sting of spite.
There is a woman the height of a little child clad in white, her pale feet seemingly floating above the lake, never touching the glistening water that made promises to the moon but never of her reflection.
Her white hair simmers in the wind as though it were its dance partner, her white, luminous eyes narrows at the Lycan King who dropped himself to the ground before her, his knees soiled with dust and grime.
He never kneels.
Her gaze sweeps over the girl in his arms, a girl he's cradling so gently, it's as though she were a glass vase which would break if he moved a bit more. Her red curls frames a plump, heart shaped face and her porcelain skin is laden with light freckles pecking her cheeks and shoulder tops.
Her long dark lashes flutters closed over big eyes with a soft landing on pale cheekbones, they look like the fleeting kisses from a butterfly.
She appears still and cold, everything but alive.
"She is my salvation, Selene. I thought we made do with foolery." The Lycan King looks edgy and tortured out of his wits. If his wolf had gone to the brink of no return, he was doing a great job keeping it at bay.
"You despised her kind." The goddess doesn't want to believe what she's seeing. No one does. "You firmly said you would kill her if you ever got to meet her. What changed?"
He narrows icy spears of inky blue at her, but when they lower to the girl in his arms, they soften a shade deeper. "Save her, that's all I ask," his voice drops to the ghost of a whisper, "please."
The goddess frowns, certain his decision is not the right one. "You will lose something valuable if I do."
"There is nothing more valuable to me than her existence."
"Are you trying to open the gates of Tartarus, child? Are you trying to unleash hell?"
"This is hell!" He flares, glancing up at her. "I am alive in a world where she is not," his face contorts in anguish, "if this isn't hell, I don't know what is, Selene."
Her frown deepens. "Even if the world crumbles?"
"It is their world." Deep blue eyes, once icy and wicked now full of resolve and hope. "I am here saving mine."
She gives him a once look over, exhaling deeply through her pale nostrils. "Very well," her voice lowers, "I will help her and in return, this is your verdict.."
Welcome to the story of revenge, love, hate, betrayal and loss.
You may proceed with caution.