Chapter 27: Departure? (1/2)

When he woke up from his nap, Crista was still concentrated on writing.

He sat down next to her and took a glance at her writings. It seemed to be a diary and she hinted at him that he could read it. It was a poem about their time in the Underworld.

”We took the ferry of the boatman Charon,

To descend to the land of the dead,

And here we are, on the Underworld riverbed.

In this strange place we are stuck,

The darkness, however, was uncooperative,

Yet we were in luck,

To be greeted by my relative,

She took us to the king,

Regal and authoritative,

He sung of wanting to bring,

His queen, goddess of the evergreen.”

'It's pretty.' Alex noted in his head. He noticed it was a very freestyle poem, and didn't include any of the specific rhyme or verse structures and other such rules he knew about in the classical poetry of his world. Although those rules did indeed make for some beautiful poetry, they were often restrictive and even the number of syllables in the verses was paramount to the expected quality of the work(1)

”What do you think? This will be my opening to this poem.” Crista asked him with eager eyes.

”It's great. I like it.” He said honestly. He wasn't exactly a knowledgeable expert on poetry, nor had he ever written it, but this sounded good to the ear and made sense.

Crista smiled but she then asked him an unexpected question, with a serious expression.

”We are going to ascend back soon, right?”

Alex was dumbstruck because he somewhat knew what would unfold now. He was afraid of this question, afraid of the outcome, afraid of her decisions, and afraid of his own reaction.

But now he had to face it.

He clenched his fists and hid the cold sweat that started to pool around his neck and spoke ”Yes. We can't stay here for very long as I promised Athena I would watch the eclipse in two weeks' time.”

Now came the hard part, her answer.

”I understand, but....is it possible that I stay here for longer?”

”Yes, it is possible.”

...

And thus was their last conversation before the two started avoiding each other.

The two of them felt guilty, Crista for deciding to stay and Alex for almost refusing.

In a sense, if they took the time to communicate properly after that, this could have all been solved, but here they were, awkward with each other because none of them would take the first step in the discussion.

Hence, 5 days passed by fast and the only time they would see each other was when they would sleep.

Alex killed time with Dionysus, and they played card games together and he even drank some of his wine.

It was said that the wine from Dionysus had to be diluted before being drunk as it could be a deadly poison and kill any mortal upon drinking a few drops.

He was no mortal, however, and although the wine felt more like burning alcohol than a mild red wine as it went down his throat in large gulps and burned his esophagus.

As one of the only alcohols that could make a god drunk, he felt tipsy and lost his sense of judgement and responsibility.

In hindsight, Dionysus should have never let him, a total lightweight, anywhere near alcohol, but as the god of wine and everything-hedonism, he was accordingly irresponsible and careless.

In his past life, he had too many responsibilities and no time to get drunk.

When he was a minor, well, he was a minor.

When he was in college, they were administered regular blood tests and to avoid any problems, he never consumed a drop of alcohol.

When he moved out, he avoided drinking since he would get hungover and having no income security, not being able to work for a whole day was a disastrous situation.