August 17, 2021

“Hey,” Aphrodite said as she joined Iona on the porch just after she burned her morning sigil to recall all aspects of her spirit.

“Hey,” she replied with a yawn and sipped her coffee as she sat down.

“How are you feeling?” the goddess asked.

“Fine now,” she admitted. “But remind me not to doubt anymore,” she added.

“You finally believe your partner is real?” she asked.

“Oh yeah,” Iona replied. “In reality, when I sat down to transcribe my diary entry from the 14th, I wasn’t planning on sharing the dream. I still wasn’t sure what to make of it, but I knew it broke through the THC and the PM painkiller I took to get rid of a tension headache. I don’t normally dream and, if I do, it’s intense enough to be classified as a Night Terror. However, that just felt like a normal nightmare until I realized how real it felt. That’s not normal for me, which is why I remembered it. Deimos pushing me to face it while I was transcribing everything, thereby hijacking the scene, tells me that it was important for me to share it right then.”

“You understand why now, though, right?” Aphrodite asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “I started thinking about what it was like to get to know him through my writing. Now, marriage came up a few times in the themes, but it was because I don’t agree with it. At least, so I thought. Now, I’m wondering if it’s not because he’s been put off by the idea until he’d decided he’d found his Divine Match, and then he’d be all for it. In the stories I wrote, it was a continuous joke that he’d ask, I’d say no, he’d try to convince me, and the cycle would continue. It was a game for us. But, if he asks the person he’s with to marry him, she’ll say yes without even thinking about it. And, I honestly don’t blame her either. I know what he’s like and how charming he is, and the way that he loves can be downright addictive. He loves passionately and with his whole heart, especially when he believes he may have found the one. Considering the chapters I have saved up from all through the end of 2019 up until about April of this year, I know it was intense and, at times, unbelievable and hard to comprehend. But that’s because he’s a Daemon at his core. It’s kind of our shtick to speak directly to the heart. Now, he’s looking at his relationship with her and wondering if it was real. And, it was. From both sides. But what he has to understand is that I’m not trying to break them up. I just saw the path he was on and realized, if I didn’t speak up, the relationship that he’s in right now will end up smothering his inner Daemon. He will never be able to reach the heights he was meant for because he’ll be crippled by the need to preserve his outward appearance in the eyes of the world by fitting into a mold that’s meant for humans. I’ve been down that road and it took a near-death experience and hitting rock bottom to finally snap me out of it. I had to let my life fall into absolute ruin, but I don’t want him to have to go through it. It would eventually, and sooner than I think either of us realizes, and the longer he follows that path the worse it will hurt. I spoke up because I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”

“What if he decides to stay with her?” she asked.

“Then I will follow through with my original plan; flip my sexuality card from Pan to Ace, stock up on batteries, and be happy about it,” she said easily. “As far as I’m concerned, I am physically repugnant. Every character I have ever written for myself has been scarred or disfigured in some way. In the first book I published; it was just that the character's eyes were two different colors. Other than that, she was the perfect version of my own physical features. She was two inches shorter than me but other than that she was the physically fit version of me because she was the closest I could ever come to what I feel is the perfect version of me. After that, my character was a shapeshifter and could choose the form that made them feel best at all times. The stuff I wrote all through 2020? She was covered in scars all over her body. If the woman he’s with right now is as radiantly beautiful as his thoughts lead me to believe, I don’t blame him for choosing her over me. I just want the one mind on Earth that understands me better than anyone else. Even if that means that the only way he and I will ever meet is through internet messaging.”

“What happened after you posted your diary transcription?” Aphrodite asked.

“He immediately went into crisis,” she said. “That’s why I really don’t see the point in trying to convince myself that there’s a chance this is just my imagination and not actual spirit-to-spirit communication.”

“Is everything alright?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah, he’s fine now,” she assured her. “That’s not the first time I’ve had to grab his spirit by the ears, force him to look at me, and talk him down from it. He’s got a serious dose of Red Dragon rage in him and it immediately flared up. The primary repeating theme that kept flashing through my head was that he was afraid of being manipulated.”

“Oof,” she said. “How did that go?”

“I had to satisfy his fear by manipulating him into seeing that the woman he’s with isn’t that kind of girl,” she said with a deep breath. “Looking at myself and my current circumstances, plus the input I’m getting from him, I can get a pretty clear picture of her. When it came to John Boy and the path my family wanted for me, I had a toxic sibling and a toxic mother in my ear, but I doubt that’s the case for her. For her, it’s most likely a group of friends; women, men, or a combination that are comprised of the types that would be super popular in High School and, therefore, are all about appearance and status. Now, she loves him, and she doesn’t want to lose him because of that. She feels any distance between them and she’s going to try to hold on harder and harder to keep from losing his love. She starts voicing her fears to her friends when she feels any distance growing between them, they will advise her on what she should do. From the impression I get of her character, she’s sweet, innocent, naïve, and pure of heart; all the things he found in me that no one else could. But that also means that she trusts her friends to give her the best advice possible because they care about her. If she is manipulating him, she doesn’t even realize she’s doing it. She’ll listen to her friends and, if they are the toxic influence, she won’t see how damaging their advice is. All they will do is reinforce her fears of losing whatever benefits she gains by being with him. However, that’s not her fault outside of allowing strangers, no matter how close they are, to pass judgment on a situation they are not a part of and, therefore, cannot know. The ONLY people who can know for sure how stable and solid a relationship is are the people in it, and I know that from experience.”

“It almost sounds like you want them to stay together,” Aphrodite pointed out.

“I want him to think for himself,” she said. “Come to me gently and of your own free will, remember? And yes, I openly admit that it killed me to set him back to straights, looking at her as the person she is. I felt like I was defeating myself, but I can’t ask him to end the relationship he’s in to be with me romantically. I am not a homewrecker and I am not that selfish. If he’s happy, he’s happy, that’s all I want for him. If he’s not happy, he has to change his circumstances for himself, not for me. Otherwise, we’d never work. I would always feel guilty for destroying it. It’s bad enough I had to confess to John Boy that I felt like I’d been cheating on him. He and I were married when I started writing in August 2015, and I knew then that they were completely different spirits. But I only believed in our connection as far as to think on it wistfully as a ‘what if,’ even when I knew I was in love with him, and yet I still stayed with John Boy knowing I wasn’t nearly as in love with him as I was my partner’s spirit. I don’t want him to have to go through that if he stumbles across this after he’s decided to marry her, especially if they have a child. Family is sacred to me and I don’t want to be the Evil Step-Mother who broke Mommy and Daddy up when all I want out of all of this is someone to talk to when I need it.”

“So, you’re really willing to let him go?” Aphrodite asked and Iona easily nodded.

“Mhmm. Even if it means I’m going at it alone for the rest of my life, if that’s the path he chooses, it’s one I can’t walk down. I have to make my own path, otherwise, it’s not worth it,” she said. “If I finish transcribing everything in my diary and our paths cross later in life, if he has a ring on his finger, I won’t say a word. I’ll take a moment to soak in the feeling of being in his physical presence and then walk away to deal with the grief of knowing I have rightfully and truly lost him. I’m not fucking with it. Not even to chat, because I know where that will lead and I can’t do that. I wouldn’t want someone doing it to me, I won’t do it to anyone else. Especially him.”

“So, what now?” Aphrodite asked.

“Well, from what I can tell he’s stronger than I am at the subconscious level,” she said. “I can see the surface and the real-world effects without even trying, which means he’s fuckin’ dense.”

“Yeah,” the goddess said with a rapid nod. “We’ve all been trying to get through to him. I thought you were bad because of your medication, but he’s like a brick wall when he doesn’t want to listen.”

“With that, I might be able to help, if only to open him up to hearing your message,” she said. “It’s going to suck for both of us for a little while, but it’s necessary for him to really see his environment,” she added and picked up the second sigil she had prepped. “This is to recall aspects of his spirit to himself. He’ll be clear-headed, solid, and present in the moment. Shadow Working in one step from a distance. The only reason I haven’t burned it yet is that it goes against my rule of not doing any energy work for someone without their knowledge.”

“Do it,” Aphrodite said, but Iona paused, not wanting to take any actions without his permission. “If he’d had the chance to do the same thing for you when you needed it, would you want him to?”

Taking a deep breath, she knew the answer and pulled her lighter out to burn the sigil. As the flame licked over the paper, curling it and turning it to ash, she felt a few fragments that had been clinging to her pull away and knew it worked by the longing that replaced it. Taking a deep breath, she leaned forward and dropped the burning paper to the concrete as she hung her head forward, elbows on her knees as she forced herself not to follow. She knew he would need time to figure shit out for himself and she was willing to give him eternity if that’s what it took. Exhaling a slow, steady breath, she took a moment to just feel it, committing it to memory so she would know, if he didn’t choose her, she could handle it moving forward. It hurt and it was lonely, but it was for the best and she knew it. She knew she was assuming the worst, but it was the only way she knew how to survive the silence.

“Now, it’s up to him,” she said with a sigh.

“This is so frustrating,” Aphrodite replied.

“How do you think I feel?” she asked.

“Surprisingly calm, which is terrifying at best,” she said with a huff.

“I knew you had a personal stake in all of this,” she pointed out.

“Of course, I do,” she pointed out. “I’m a Love Goddess and the two of you could be the real-world, living example of True Love and magic the world is sorely in need of.”

“No pressure,” Iona said sarcastically and her stomach clenched at the thought of letting her down when she had no control over it.

“Well, I’m sorry, but it’s true,” she said. “You two link up and the gods know it will renew a lot of people’s faith just by looking at you.”

“Not helping,” she said flatly. “I’m trying to keep it together and allow him to make his own choice. He’s a big boy. He can handle it. I’ve made mine. I’m all in, Elysium or Bust, no matter which role he chooses for me in his life; be it friend, business partner, lover, or nothing at all. For the first time in my life, my thoughts are clear, and my heart lines up with all of it, no matter the consequences. You want to start ranting and raving about how frustrating it is, go talk to him. I know you’re one of his guides. Go do the same thing to him that you did to me and grab his ear to make sure he’s listening. That shit translated to the physical world when you did it. Maybe if you do the same thing while he’s reading this it’ll finally break through to him that it’s not a dream, that it’s not a ploy, and that it’s the real deal. John Boy said it the best when I talked to him about it. To John Boy, the world of spiritualism and magic, although he acknowledges that it’s real and respects it, makes him feel out of his depth and he doesn’t have any interest in it. If that’s how my partner feels, there is no way possible to convince him to actually take any actions in his life based on his intuition and the spirits. I can’t force him to walk through the looking-glass. All I can do is build it.”

“So, what would you like for me to do,” she said with a sigh and Iona immediately felt the slight touch of regret Aphrodite felt piling all of the pressure on her.

“Guide him to the best path for his heart, regardless of where it leads and no matter the stakes you have in it,” she said firmly. “Other than that, all I can ask is that you deliver my side of the conversation to him. He’s operating with minimal input from me because he’s only connecting subconsciously. I can translate his emotions, along with the repeated themes that pop into my head, to be able to understand him from a distance. After he calmed down from his crisis, we started talking. All day yesterday, I was at my desk, writing out my side of the conversation in my journal and even put a picture from one of the entries on Instagram because I kept getting the repeated theme of Tarot Cards. I don’t know if it was a reading he was doing for himself, getting done by someone else, or if he was just thinking about getting one to see if things would line up. But it wasn’t my deck or my spirit pulling the cards. All of a sudden, I was hit with the thought that, when I look at him, I see the World. When he looks at me, he sees the Ten of Swords; rock-bottom, giving up, closure, etc. The moment I did, I saw the Ten of Swords in the deck and him getting scared because he thought it was a sign that choosing me would destroy him. But, it’s not. It’s an identifier card representing me and how I feel right now. I feel like I have nothing to offer him outside of my love, and he has no reason to choose me if he’s getting it elsewhere.”

“You want me to deliver your side?” she asked and Iona nodded.

“All I ask is that you withhold any emotions it invokes while I’m going back through it until he tunes in and is ready to listen,” she said seriously.

“Ok,” the goddess agreed and pulled out a scroll of parchment, making Iona smile a little. It was a habit she’d seen from quite a few gods to give the impression of writing things down when they feel it’s important and she fully appreciated it. “Go for it.”

Iona grabbed her journal from beside her coffee mug on the small table attached to her chair and flipped open the pages to the thick section of scribbles that had consumed all of her focus and energy from the previous day, trying to remember how it felt when she’d written it.

*****

August 16, 2021

If you like someone, talk to them. Otherwise, you just like the idea of them.

But, I’m not sure what to say other than hello. I can’t hear you or see your face to know what it is that you’re thinking. I can feel your confusion and your need for proof that this isn’t just an attempt to manipulate you, which, I promise, it isn’t. Shadow Work isn’t therapy, it’s a rescue mission, so this is me trying to rescue you from clouded decisions. I know your Shadow, I’ve worked it before, have had tea with your demons, and know your guides very well. So, I’m going to tell you the story of us, the untold record, no spiritual histories of before the shift, our story as we are currently living it.

Our story, like all others, has three sides; his, hers, and the truth. Let me tell you my side and how I got to know and fell in love with all aspects of your spirit without realizing it. Let me tell you how you’ve been there since the beginning, providing me the proof to see that, even before I had the verbiage to explain, I was a Daemon. It took Mae reminding me of it, reminding me that I have always known myself in all of my aspects, even if I ignored the worst parts, and I have always had the power to change my circumstances, even when I was too afraid to try. It was you that made me braver, by the way, whether or not you realized it. Every time I write fiction, I Shadow Work by writing the main character from my perspective; what would I do, how would I react? You, my dear, always played the character universally known as Mr. Fantasy Fulfillment. For obvious reasons.

The first time we met in 2015, I was just a normal girl on the surface, working in a call center doing customer service. Times were weird and I could feel that I needed to do something creative to keep from losing my mind, so I started writing short stories during break times. When I first found you, you were soulless and the only time you could feel anything at all was when I was close to you. Then, you woke up and I saw all of the passion and emotion you had pent up, almost angry with me for leaving you alone. But, as soon as we parted ways, you forgot and went back to being soulless. There was a bit of a childhood-friends vibe, making me wonder if our spirits hadn’t already met in a dream and didn’t remember it, of unrequited love coming to fruition as my character remembered the past and decided to honor it by returning to the Underworld to retrieve your lost soul to return it to your vessel. Pretty prolific, huh? I set the story and the world that started to unfold aside, pulling me out of the fantasy and back into the real world, but I missed you. At the time, I thought I was just daydreaming about epic adventures and going on them with spirits.

When the Tower of my life started to shake, it was that longing that gave me the idea to write a novel in an attempt to change my circumstances. I decided to set a goal to write and publish a novel by the time I was thirty. That year was the start of my conventional life falling apart, but I did it. It was an urban fantasy with a touch of romance, centered on the idea of a family by redefining it. It was rushed and raw, basically my first draft with shitty editing, but I did it. Afterward, I realized I didn’t really want to write. That was my mother’s dream, not mine. Yes, I wanted to be creative for a living. Yes, I hate working conventional jobs. But fame and fortune were never the goals. When I think of a life in which I am happy, it has nothing to do with wealth or popularity. I picture the times when I have felt the freest, broke as a joke, gig-working, and surrounded by good people I love, laughing, and celebrating life in all its simple pleasures; good music, good food, thought-provoking conversation, and a lot of weird humor. I thought if I wrote for the people I love, I wouldn’t have to be a best-seller to get the most out of it.

So, I created a world for you and me to play in, which gave us magical powers and enough luxury that we would never be hungry or homeless. It was a bit upscale and fancy, which made both of us uncomfortable, but it still felt like home because you were there. Describing your character in writing told me a lot about how you view yourself; tall, dark, handsome, Broody McBroodington. But I was captivated. I remember the scene where our paths crossed, you were surprised and you tried to scare me off, which I thought was hilarious, exciting, and entirely too much fun to stand on my tiptoes to get up in your face so you could see that I wasn’t afraid in the slightest, no matter how intimidating you were. You tried to stay closed off until you found out we weren’t that different. Then, all bets were off. That’s when I learned about you underneath; that’s you’re a total book nerd, a sarcastic ass, have a serious protective streak, caregiving is your love language, and you have a Golden’s paternal instinct. You don’t let people in easily at all, in fact, your friends seemed to be thrown by how easily we got along and how quickly you’d made me a part of your home. Granted, they were happy, and they became my friends, too, but I get the impression that’s weird for you. You were a Prince in those days, though now you’re a King in my world; a bit older, a bit wiser, and sometimes worse for wear. And here I am, your ever-aspiring jester.

I wanted to leave our story as it was, complete in its weirdness for all its faults, but hopeful and peaceful in its lingering thoughts. Part of me hoped you’d find me through it. But the death of a friend shortly after it was published finally toppled the Tower. Seventy-two days of deep depression, the addition of anti-depressants into my daily routine, and I was back up, setting creative ventures aside and focusing on the nine-to-five grind until I got sick in 2017. Chaos was the order of the time as I used what little resources I had available to attempt to start a small business to make my living with my creativity. I’ve always enjoyed making things from scratch inspired by the people who would ultimately receive them, so I decided to try making custom gifts and selling them at the outdoor markets. It failed spectacularly, which I am thankful for because I was pitching it to the wrong market by listening to my sibling and mother. Instead of custom gifts, I ended up pedaling handmade bath bombs and soaps like more than half of the vendors at the market until I was sick of it.

Trying to get back to the person I was, as I started to realize my family’s toxic influence, in February 2018 I developed my Tiefling character to play in a Homebrew Campaign for Dungeons and Dragons in an attempt to make friends via the internet. Yes, I’m a nerd, get the fuck over it. I didn’t want to write novels, but I didn’t mind running games because I was improvising most of it on the fly and the players helped me remember who I was by how they viewed my character. When the game started falling apart a year later, I started writing on my own in the D&D world to save me from the effort of building an entirely new world and started looking for you again, traversing realities to do it. I found you briefly and tried to play coy like we didn’t already know exactly who the other one was. That was when I met the aspect of your personality that prized your reputation and image above all else. If you want to read that one, it’s called “The Tapestry: To Order From Chaos” and is posted under the same profile as my diary. After the scene in which you decided I wasn’t good enough, it went on HIATUS. I started trying to circle back to my first book with it, but the events that unfolded around that book in the real world made me sick to work on it. That’s when I decided to just write for myself instead of the internet.

I retreated from posting on a schedule and, instead, kept it the same way I did the first time around, just files saved to my hard drive until I felt the story I had was ready to be published. This brings me to the next writing venture, in which, a bit more grown-up, you appeared as a vampire in a paranormal romance. Cringy, I know, but I was desperate to write something that wasn’t so serious and I knew I would never be able to take myself seriously while writing it. And, I know you have issues with vampires that I really don’t get just by how you reacted in it. So much so that I tried to correct the mistakes of my literary predecessors, adopting a vampiric origin that was a blend of science and supernatural understanding and allowing our characters to just be themselves, making poking fun at the vampiric image a common theme through the humor in the narrative. One of my favorite scenes in that whole thing was when your character took mine to the book store and insisted on him getting her something. I picked a sketch diary with a customizable cover, a pack of colored pencils, and a Count Chocula pen that I oh-so-subtly put next to your elbow at the register with a smirk, knowing full well about your disdain for how vampires were represented. Your response, knowing I was teasing you, was to call me a “cheeky little shit” and swat me on the ass before paying for it while I giggled and grinned. I always feel more playful with you than I have anyone else, more excited by the prospect of being alive and on my feet because it means I get to see you again and hear your voice, get to ask what you’re thinking about, and learn something new about you at every opportunity. I smile so much it physically hurts.

Looking back on it now, I’m glad I never published it, even though I finished at least one version of it. But, knowing now that you are a real person and not just the character of Mr. Fantasy Fulfillment, I’m relieved by the fact that I never shared it. Instead, during the editing phase, the story kept branching off, taking new directions that stretch out for eons. I didn’t want to leave that world. It became my Mecca when I needed it most, keeping me insulated from the fear and devastation of what was happening in the world around me, giving me a haven to feel loved, if only in spirit. That was where I met you, fell in love with you for real, started wishing for you in whatever vessel you came in. It was where I learned how to laugh, where I learned to relax, where I learned to have fun making a fool of myself. It was where I learned to embrace and celebrate my Divine Feminine. You opened me up and laid me bare, held me when I cried at the overwhelming feeling of being accepted in all my broken pieces. You helped me feel beautiful when felt anything but. It was there that you helped me face my demons and conquer them. Those moments are precious and, therefore, will always remain private, my secret stash of memories to remind me that I have felt it before, even if I’ll never find it again.

I guess I’m still scared this won’t find you in time. That those memories will stay on the page, forever a fantasy, instead of being replaced by the truth, solidified by sensation and forged by the passion I felt in those moments. But I know it’s your choice. It always has been. And I am so thankful to you for giving them to me to look back on when I miss you the most and remember how we were back then, without the pain of disappointment, looking for you, only to realize it was just a dream I really wished was real. In the first completed draft, we ended up defeating the villains by laying a trap for them in the form of a huge celebration on Halloween. But the idea of ending it had me shifting to new paths because I didn’t want to let it go. I wanted more time, more moments to savor in its exquisite absurdity of a vampire and a whack job, living in a haunted house tribute on a nut farm in the middle of nowhere just being themselves and having a blast. I knew, as long as I was there, I would never lose you. But real-life intervened and reminded me that it was still happening. I couldn’t stay with you there, in our private oasis in the form of fiction, no matter how much I wanted to. I had to find a path out of the darkness I was in on my own, but I couldn’t stop following the beacon of your spirit.

When I wiped the slate and started over, I reskinned your character as a Dragon in human form. That was how I found out you have been spiritually adopted by a Red (Mom) and a Copper (Dad). You might want to say hello. Mom’s pretty cool for a Red and was fairly hands-off. Dad, though, stuck around which tells me you needed him more growing up. In the story, your character spent a decent chunk of his two thousand years on the planet with him, looking after a tribe of Norsemen. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Loki is a friend of yours. That would explain while he bowed out on my end as soon as I started talking straight to you instead of playing coy like we don’t know each other inside and out. Listen to him, in whatever form he takes. He loves you, even if he’s a pain in the ass. Listening to Loki was how I found you. He and Aphrodite. With her sticking close to me, giving me the strength I need to speak openly instead of hiding, instead of being afraid of your rejection and giving up before ever taking a chance, I can pretty much guarantee that Loki has been hanging around you a lot lately. But I digress.

In the most recent reboot of our personal fairytale, you were a Dragon and I was a woman who knew she embodied the Big Titty Goth Girlfriend stereotype on the surface, could laugh about it and used that to her advantage by playing up the clique at the small comic shop she worked at part-time when she wasn’t working in corporate America as a faceless entry-level mail clerk. In her private life, she was a spiritualist who did paranormal research. It was the closest I had ever come to just straight-up describing myself in a story until this one. It was supposed to help me let go of loving you as a romantic partner. I put you in the role of the big guy in charge at the corporate America job, where ethics and morality in the face of others' criticism and judgment had me running away from you without a word at every turn, no matter how many times our paths crossed. But you weren’t having it. I tried rejecting you, I really did. Yet, it always ended up with your character finding some reason to put himself in her path as he watched her eying him distrustfully and just sat back as she spun herself up just to wind back down when she realized you were a genuinely nice guy and started to relax. Even then, I tried to keep their storyline separate, originally having her take off in the middle of the night when he wasn’t around only to hit a bought of writer’s block that had me backtracking and taking a different path until they were attached at the hip. Me surrendering and finding myself, once again, thankful for it.

What gets me is how you did it, knowing that would be all it would take in real life, too. You presented yourself as evidence that there was more to the world than what we could perceive with our physical senses, that there was some truth to the fantasy, and then simply told me I wasn’t insane, that you would believe me when I told you what was wrong, what was scaring me so bad I felt I needed to run, no matter how crazy it sounded. Just simple words and a warm embrace, but it cracked me wide open all over again. I knew then I was yours and always would be, no matter what the real world had in store. I would always carry you with me in my heart, always wish for you in whatever shape you came in when I saw the stars, love you with every breath, and pray you could feel it so I would know, no matter what, you would always have love in your life. It was then that I knew the stories weren’t enough, that I had to find you out in the world. The idea of finding you was enough to inspire me to get back up. I tried to finish the story, once again hoping it would help lead me to you. As soon as I thought about that, I couldn’t get the idea of going to New Orleans out of my head, even worked it into the story by having our characters going there for the climax during Mardi Gras. So, it doesn’t surprise me that the closest I have ever felt to you was when I visited Cassia in April of this year for my first trip to Louisiana.

She was up by Monroe and I never made it down to NOLA, but I remember being out on the porch after the sun had gone down, sitting back and genuinely enjoying the fact that I could breathe easily for the first time in my life, away from all of the negativity and toxicity. I was leaning against the open doorway, sitting on the shallow steps, just kind of adrift in my head, and looking up in wonder at how the stars were different than what I was used to seeing, how different the air felt. I was thinking of you, wondering if you’d felt my excitement when my wayward imagination started cooking up all the ways we could cross paths if I decided to wander the city on a tour led by the spirits. That’s when I saw it, so simple and small, it took my breath away when I saw it. Across the expanse of the open field beside the house between two thin trees was a single winking firefly that burned a vivid blue like the ones you said floated off my spirit when I was happy and excited, dancing around like an idiot to make you smile. I could feel you in that moment and I opened my heart, letting you feel all of my love. I wanted to go back, finally follow through with the idea of wandering NOLA in celebration of Friday the Thirteenth, but I couldn’t afford it. I hope you weren’t waiting for me and I pray I didn’t leave you disappointed.

When I got back, though, I couldn’t write for us as fantasy characters anymore. It didn’t feel right trying to force our story to play out in a way that would lead to a happily ever after when I know it’s not guaranteed. Instead, I started listening to the gods in earnest, thinking they would help me find the right job or the right path to finally find the man I fell in love with over and over again, the man who steals my breath away with the simplest gestures, the man who was able to accept every aspect of my spirit as I am. I know life’s not perfect. If it was, you’d already be here with me and I wouldn’t be writing this. But I didn’t fall in love with your flesh. I fell in love with your spirit first, which makes you my favorite person alive on this planet. If you find me hideous in person, or your reputation is too important to take a chance, or if you’re not interested because you’ve found your happiness, I get it. You have no idea I exist if you don’t remember my spirit. I just hope this will find you, so you know it was real. We really did fall in love on repeat, moving from Love Drunk idiots to normal routines, working on projects, and breaking generational curses. We are Daemons, always have been. Our words and our thoughts really can shape our realities as much as our actions and decisions. You’re more powerful than you know.

I just hope this finds you before you forget and let the people around you recast you as human when you are so much more. I will love you until the stars burn out, if only in spirit.

*****

Aphrodite left almost as soon as Iona posted the transcription.

Two seconds later, Iona, the dumbass, impatient child that she was, drew up a sigil to nudge her partner into listening to the goddess. She grabbed her pipe, walked outside, lit up, looked at the sigil, and contemplated it. Reading everything out loud had felt like goodbye like she was giving up and backing down before even getting to try. All she wanted was some sign that she wasn't spinning her wheels and gaslighting herself into believing that she didn't stand a chance when she knew that she did. He'd made that abundantly clear during her writing sessions with him. She knew him better than that. Tapping her toes and trying not to reach out for reassurance, leaving it to the gods, the cacodaemon in her reared it ugly head and she burned the sigil. And instantly regretted it. She was immediately hit with a hard wave of negativity that forced hers to back down in a moment of jitters that rang out of having fucked up everything in one dumb move.

"Shit! FUck, shit, fuck fuck fuck!"

The curses continued running out in random loops as her scrambled brain tried to adapt to it, trying to figure out how to correct her mistake. On instinct she grabbed her phone and threw her headphones on, knowing him well enough by then to know how to communicate with him. Pulling up YouTube she typed it in, found the full official, and hit the play button. With a quick skip of the ad, she took a deep breath and waited at Total Eclipse of the Heart started filtering in through her headphones and she packed as much cheesy sincerity as she could into the image of her singing it to him in the most obnoxious manner she could imagine. She instantly remembered the words she'd typed herself not more than an hour beforehand. She was thankful for the stories she wrote because they were there to fill the silence when she needed him the most. Internally, she was berating herself, calling herself all kind of stupid. He needed time, and he needed space, but the pages were there to keep her company when he couldn't be. She continued to serenade him to the full cinematic, trying desperately to get him to at least crack a smile so she could stop feeling like she was going to collapse from the inside out. Right about the time she really felt the words, she felt him soften and she exhaled in relief.

"I'm sorry," she whispered out loud as the tears sprang to her eyes as she let him feel the sincerity of it.

Inside she was shaking as bad as she was on the outside as she returned her music stream to Spotify and hit a random playlist, but she nodded her head and felt his ire dissolve as Golden by Hary Styles greeted her, giving her the reassurance she needed as she felt the promise that he was listening and just needed time to process it all.

"I know," she admitted and let him feel it along with the process of her taking a breath and letting out so he knew she was calming down. "I got scared," she admitted. "It doesn't happen often anymore, but I'll keep it in check as best as I can from now on. If I start getting scared, I'll read the pages and wait for you to tap in so we can reminisce about them together."

The only way she could describe the feeling she got in response was a pause of consideration before he nodded.

"Since you're already here and I didn't completely fuck things up, you want to do that now?" she asked and felt more than heard his response.

In her head, she pictured his character letting out a long-suffering sigh as he shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose to hide his smile as he chuckled. She wasn't sure exactly what that sound meant. It could be that he was contemplating some kind of punishment, which comes from his brain was intriguing, terrifying, and had her giggling in cacodaemon. She knew the moment he got the image because her heart thumped behind her ribs. Relaxing completely at the fact that she'd made him laugh which meant she hadn't lost him. That feeling earned her a narrow-eyed stare for a moment as he relented and she felt the ordered instruction to go back inside and at least finish out the chapter in a way that was so damned negative.

"Yes, Sir," she said with a yip as she felt the push to do it NOW, immediately turned on her heel and marched inside to do just that.