She flares with anger brought upon by grief and betrayal, and it hurts enough to steal her breath. One fisted hand unfurls itself, sliding down to press firmly against her abdomen while the other remains steadfast against her sternum. There is the hiss of air between her clenched teeth, and no doubting the resentment in her tone.
He knows he shouldn't ask. That the answer will likely be no more comfortable than the ones she has already given. But the question is already past his lips before he can stop it. And perhaps it's just as well. If she would blame him no matter what he should choose to call himself, surely it's better to know sooner rather than later?
"Or would you blame me for what I have not done - could not do - regardless?"
"If Hades cares, it is not for me." A quiet sound rises in her throat, angry and anguished in equal measure. Slowly, it rises in volume until she's all but yelling:
"What you did was ensure I was forever alone! Has your precious master been worth all the sacrifices?!"
She takes a gasping breath, fingers digging into the flesh of her chest until the flare of pain eases.
"Tell me, Hades," Hemera demands in a dangerous whisper. "If He had demanded it, would you have sacrificed my child to sate His monstrous hunger?"
He flinches, just a little, at her first comment. He'd known it would hurt, had known that there had been all but no chance it wouldn't - had been expecting it to hurt - and it still does. It's harder, too, to think of setting it aside, when it is something that has been so directly pointed, from one of the people he'd cared for most. But he has lived with sorrow for thousands upon thousands of years. He can manage a little longer, or so he imagines.
...And then she mentions a child, and any thoughts but that promptly flee his mind, leaving him blinking as he processes the news. Enough so that he does - for a moment - wonder if there is still a child. (Now that he's actually looking he can see the physical signs pregnancy has left on her body; small changes that he had all but written off as his memory being faulty after so long.) Logic kicks back in then - if there had been he would have seen it from the first. Thus, it is a matter of there having been a child. A potential that was never realized, and there's some part of him that might almost mourn that, deep under the tempering.
"Have I fallen so far in your graces that you assume I would even want to?"
There's hurt in his voice - how can there not be, at such an accusation - but there's echoes of loss, too. Of sorrow, both for what could have been and what was. He might not have had the chance to know Hemera's child - neither of them have - but he knows all too well the pain of losing a child. Even if his had managed to exist, for a time.
The hurt she can hear-sense-taste in his voice catches her by surprise, as does the fact she spoke of a child at all. To her it had never been more than a possibility. A promise made to her by the star only to be broken. Her breath catches, damp with emotion she hasn't confronted in decades.
"...I suppose it doesn't matter," she says, ignoring the wetness in her eyes. "Zodiark or no, I could never have done it all my own. There was never going to be a child."
It might have been no more than a possibility, perhaps. But that it had - for that one brief moment - been a possibility is enough to dig at wounds he had thought very nearly closed. Memories that he would have been otherwise perfectly content to let lie, to remain as simply that. Memories, of something that might have been. Fragments, echoes of what she has, with that single suggestion, spoken into the world. There may not have been a child. But there could have been. Without Zodiark. Without the Final Days. Without the decisions that had been made and not made.
It takes a moment, before he finds the right words. Before he finds it in himself to speak at all, when he knows that there are too many 'what if's to speak of the possibility of there having been one, had they not had cause to summon Zodiark.
"Emotions rarely care for if a thing should matter, I've found. The hurt is real. The possibility was real, if but for that brief moment."
The hope was real, though he can't say for certain if she'd allowed herself to do so the way he had, when she'd realized what could have been. Nor does he mean to ask. Some things are better left unsaid, and this, he suspects, is one of them.
"I was too ill." For a time she had thought it from grief, but then it worsened. "It was killing me."
There was so much pain. So much blood—
Hemera curls into herself further with a quiet, agonized gasp. Her soul shudders along with her, guttering like a candle flame before eventually steadying again. (She wishes it didn't.)
Her voice falters, turning into no more than a broken whisper.
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She flares with anger brought upon by grief and betrayal, and it hurts enough to steal her breath. One fisted hand unfurls itself, sliding down to press firmly against her abdomen while the other remains steadfast against her sternum. There is the hiss of air between her clenched teeth, and no doubting the resentment in her tone.
"It should have been you."
no subject
He knows he shouldn't ask. That the answer will likely be no more comfortable than the ones she has already given. But the question is already past his lips before he can stop it. And perhaps it's just as well. If she would blame him no matter what he should choose to call himself, surely it's better to know sooner rather than later?
"Or would you blame me for what I have not done - could not do - regardless?"
no subject
"What you did was ensure I was forever alone! Has your precious master been worth all the sacrifices?!"
She takes a gasping breath, fingers digging into the flesh of her chest until the flare of pain eases.
"Tell me, Hades," Hemera demands in a dangerous whisper. "If He had demanded it, would you have sacrificed my child to sate His monstrous hunger?"
no subject
...And then she mentions a child, and any thoughts but that promptly flee his mind, leaving him blinking as he processes the news. Enough so that he does - for a moment - wonder if there is still a child. (Now that he's actually looking he can see the physical signs pregnancy has left on her body; small changes that he had all but written off as his memory being faulty after so long.) Logic kicks back in then - if there had been he would have seen it from the first. Thus, it is a matter of there having been a child. A potential that was never realized, and there's some part of him that might almost mourn that, deep under the tempering.
"Have I fallen so far in your graces that you assume I would even want to?"
There's hurt in his voice - how can there not be, at such an accusation - but there's echoes of loss, too. Of sorrow, both for what could have been and what was. He might not have had the chance to know Hemera's child - neither of them have - but he knows all too well the pain of losing a child. Even if his had managed to exist, for a time.
"Of course I wouldn’t have.”
no subject
"...I suppose it doesn't matter," she says, ignoring the wetness in her eyes. "Zodiark or no, I could never have done it all my own. There was never going to be a child."
no subject
It takes a moment, before he finds the right words. Before he finds it in himself to speak at all, when he knows that there are too many 'what if's to speak of the possibility of there having been one, had they not had cause to summon Zodiark.
"Emotions rarely care for if a thing should matter, I've found. The hurt is real. The possibility was real, if but for that brief moment."
The hope was real, though he can't say for certain if she'd allowed herself to do so the way he had, when she'd realized what could have been. Nor does he mean to ask. Some things are better left unsaid, and this, he suspects, is one of them.
no subject
There was so much pain. So much blood—
Hemera curls into herself further with a quiet, agonized gasp. Her soul shudders along with her, guttering like a candle flame before eventually steadying again. (She wishes it didn't.)
Her voice falters, turning into no more than a broken whisper.
"...It would have been our masterwork. A family."