BETWEEN WAKING AND DREAM
Erevan walked alone.
The world around him was not the palace, not the realm of men. It was somewhere else. A meadow frozen in perpetual dusk, where twilight bloomed in violet hues and every step echoed across eternity.
He stopped.
She was waiting.
Persephone stood barefoot in the center of the field, where black flowers curled at her feet and the wind whispered like forgotten lullabies. Her dark robes rippled like a storm-cloud stitched with stars. Her eyes, ancient and endless, rested on the young king—not as a goddess watching a mortal, but as a mother gazing at a son she had chosen.
"You came," she said, voice soft as velvet, yet woven with power older than empires.
"I dreamed," Erevan replied.
Persephone smiled faintly. "You were called."
A pause. Wind curled around him like arms.
"The contract is sealed," she said. "Your blood called to me. You carry mercy without naivety. Dignity without delusion. You do not beg for power. You ask what price it bears. So I give it freely."
She stepped forward.
Her fingers brushed his forehead. It burned. Not with fire—but with truth.
A crown not of gold but of roots, of memory, of night, settled upon his soul.
A blessing made not to conquer, but to endure.
Then she looked him straight in the eyes.
"Now," she said gently, "the world will ask you to perform."
"Then tell me," Erevan asked, voice steady, "what story shall I play for your entertainment, Queen of the Night?"
She chuckled, a sound like distant thunder warming into rain.
"Entertainment?" she echoed. "No, Erevan. I do not ask for amusement."
She circled him, slow and solemn.
"The gods above want champions. War. Justice. Wrath. Fire."
"But me?"
She stopped behind him.
"I want a king who walks into a cage and says to the lion: 'I forgive you. But I will not kneel.'"
He turned to face her.
Persephone met his gaze.
"Write me a story, Erevan," she said.
"Where kindness lives even when hope dies.
Where death does not silence the righteous.
Where a boy born fragile dares to love his people more than power."
He knelt—not as a servant, but as a sovereign honoring a pact.
"I will write that story," Erevan whispered.
She placed her palm over his heart.
"And I will make sure you live long enough to finish it."
The world flickered.
Then—
He woke.
Breathless, sweat-lined, but his pulse steady.
Carlos sat beside him, already halfway out of his seat, eyes narrowed.
"You were out for five minutes," Carlos snapped. "You almost stopped breathing."
Erevan turned his head slowly.
"I met her."
Carlos blinked. "Met who?"
Erevan smiled, faint and strange.
"Persephone."
Carlos blinked again. "Oh gods."
"Yours is a terrible influence," Erevan muttered, sitting up.
Carlos muttered under his breath, "…they said she was good."
And from the corners of the shadows, unseen to mortal eyes, the dark goddess stood smiling—watching her king begin his story.
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Absolutely. Here's a continuation that dives deep into the divine drama—the gods watching, whispering, and shifting as Carlos and Erevan break the rhythm of fate itself.
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THE CELESTIAL BALCONY ABOVE THE WORLD
Above the sky, higher than stars could breathe, the gods convened.
Not often did the immortal gather. Not like this. But mortals were rewriting fate—and not just any mortals. A reborn soul and a king with a breaking heart.
The gods leaned into the veil.
A thousand eyes turned toward Persephone, now seated at the edge of her garden of dusk, a black crown of withering lilies blooming in her hair.
She had been chosen.
And the others… they stirred.
Ares, the old war god with dried blood under his nails, slammed his goblet onto the cosmic floor. "The boy should have chosen me. I might made him a good use."
"You watched his brother," Persephone said calmly. "You should have seen why he wouldn't."
Ares snarled. "And you'll ruin him with sentiment. He needs steel, not shadows."
"Shadows," she replied, "are where truth grows wild."
The Goddess of Purity stepped forward then—her face pale and cold, like snowfall before judgment. "You would let your mortal sit beside death while he rules? The empire will rot from the root."
"He chose me," Persephone whispered. "And he lives. That is more than any of you offered."
Zeus, ancient and fading, eyes like flickering lightning, scoffed from his marble throne. "The older boy. The one with fire in his blood… he remembers. That's not natural."
"It is fate," a deep voice replied.
A shadow unfolded in the shape of Carlos's god, mask gleaming like sun off a sword.
"You gave him death once. Now let him earn life."
The gods murmured. They don't say anything to the outer god who was not a part of theirs sitting on the throne. And where is that throne came from.
"Impossible," said one.
"Unholy," whispered another.
Apollo, shining and proud, looked down through the clouds and said, "The little one killed a queen. Barely fifteen, and already drowning in blood."
"Then blame the crown," Persephone said sharply. "Not the hand that held it back from falling."
The gods fell into silence as a new light sparked—not golden, not divine, but defiant.
Below them, in a mortal chamber bathed in moonlight and firelight, Carlos and Erevan sat side by side.
Two brothers.
A wounded king.
A haunted protector.
They weren't divine. But the gods could feel it—they were beginning to carry something beyond human.
Carlos, cloaked in curses and loyalty, still bore his scars like blades.
Erevan, breath slow but steady, had a soul that sang quiet revolutions.
And both had chosen.
Not safety. Not tradition. But each other.
"Let them come," Carlos's god whispered in the dark.
And far below, Carlos turned his head to the window, eyes sharp as glass.
He was already preparing for the next storm.