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Happy Birthday, Aster ♡

You gazed upon a familiar figure composed entirely of marble; a distant memory immortalised in stone. The object was inanimate, cold and rigid. It was a sculpture that mimicked a human being without expressing the warmth that pulsating flesh and oxygen filled lungs would be able to. The statue was that of a God; a Greek figure that once struck fear into the souls of those who crossed his bloodthirsty and unforgiving path. He was a figure created to imprint terror into weak, fragile minds, and yet, as you gazed into his vacant, emotionless eyes, you felt your heart flutter. Distant memories of a past life danced across your vision. Memories of late nights sleeping beneath the stars; visions of holding someone's hand as you dashed through marble hallways laughing endlessly as you teased other Gods; heartwrentching screams of soldiers lost in battle.

You stumbled backwards. The memories you possessed did not belong to you. They belonged to someone who had lived a different life; a life lived centuries before your own creation.

You shook your head to escape your daze. You had not slept in weeks and exhaustion blurred the lines between reality and fiction. You returned your focus towards the God. You were here to study Greek mythology. Ares, the God of War, was a figure you felt intuitively connected with. You saw familiarity within his sculpted cheek bones and felt safety within his empty eyes. He was someone you believed you had known for a life time...

You laughed to yourself at how painfully alone you had become in recent years. You laughed at yourself for becoming deluded by the romanticisation of a mythological figurine. Sparing Ares a final glance, you turned to your right in order to vacate the imposing and empty hall. Turning away from the sculpture, your breath caught in your throat.

The human who gazed towards the God was the perfect embodiment of Ares himself. Their eyes sharp with a coldness that was able to kill one thousand men; their muscles buldged with tension desperate to escape and create chaos. He turned towards you, his eyes widened with a hesitant recognition that faded in the same breath. He was not a stranger and yet, you had never met this man before. You opened your mouth to speak and your words died in your throat. If reincarnation was possible, you were certain the stranger had lived the life of a God before. Tilting your head to the side, you offered the stranger a smile. He gazed at you with eyes that did not blink.

He opened his mouth to speak when suddenly his name was called from behind. "Quincy!" The voice snapped each of you from your daze. Taking leave, you abandoned Quincy and left him alone with his own thoughts...

He had finally found you. He had found you in a world in which Gods did not exist. He had found you in a realm in which you were equals. He had found you in a universe in which he could die by your own hands in order to atone for his disastrous sins he had created.

He had found you.