You don't know her, but you will.
Her name was Meden, the goddess of gaps. She watched over the construction of bridges, traced over rivers that ate the earth to create valleys, cherished the bats in caves, gaps in teeth, and helped with mourning. But that was before it all, but you don’t know what that means, and she isn’t here to fill that gap, so I will fill you in on what was.
Meden Before
Meden stood sentinel at the foot of her cave, silent as she looked over the remnants of Troy. Children played in the cleared courtyard, their laughter dressing the air with joy, sticking to her skin like feathers. She smiled as they teetered in the ruins, sprinting seamlessly past remnants of statues and walls.
Fabric rippling in the air caught her eye; women drying clothes, the cloth rippling reminding of the sails that had come from far away to break down Troy.
That’s why she was summoned, the Goddess of the Gaps, to teach the Trojans that they can live, even with so much weight in their hearts, to not stitch the quiet shut, but to listen to what it has to say until the conversation is over.
The playing children stiffened in the courtyard, churning to a gaggle of mothers who waved them over. Meden looked to see the sun dipping below the horizon, catching the world on fire with licks of amber, rose, and scarlet. Meden looked down at Troy again to see the kids, one by one, tucking by their mothers’ shadows as they padded to their homes for the night.
Meden smiled down on the humans and retired to her cave, the keep of all empty things. The gloam carved out the etchings of an ancient river that had burrowed through the stone, and the coven of bats that served as her fleet of messengers, who shifted with electricity at the first signs of dusk. Meden observed their tiny bodies, as stoic as stalagmites, their dark eyes glittering in the dark toward the entrance. They pressed against each other, ears switching this way and that, as if tracking a voice rippling in the depths of the cave system.
Meden stepped toward them, and looked into a triangular face closest. It didn’t fear her, it’s sculling eyes trained on her face.
“What do you see with those eyes?”
She held the delicate chin of the bat on her fingertips, it used her nails to scratch its face, having her grave over the bridge of cheeks, opening its eyes, straining a black lipped smile with pleasure. Meden chuckled, and stared into its bulging eyes, hanging, seeing through the bat’s gaze, fangs of stone, members of its coven, roosting until time to unhook, Meden looked over the prints of erosion, the heaviness of presence prickling her nerves, she looked and looked until, she saw a shoulder peeling away from stone.
The scent of smoke filled her senses. That of old coals from pyres, wicks -
She exhaled the bitter notes, whispering, “Hades.”
She turned to face the god, who now stood before her in the mouth of the cave, eclipsing the light with ease. He padded toward her. His heels hardly making a sound on the floor.
She breathed through the icy atmosphere of the death god in measurements, focused on his face, so daunt and angular, reminding her of a cliff, formed from years of maintaining the Underworld. The numbness of death following Hades, the ice gnawed on her skin, insisting that she must curl in to keep warm, but she disobeyed instinct, and looked up at Hades.
He was skinny as smoke, and just as smoldering.
Hades stopped before the goddess.
Meden offered a bow, feeling her cheeks burn deeper as she dipped her head.
“To what do I owe this visit, Ha-,”
Hades’ sandals shifted. Breath caught in Meden’s throat, as she looked up at him. The flesh between his eyebrows wrinkled, knitting her stomach into a knot. She looked him over. In the dying light, she could see that his jaw was clenched, and his shoulders were drawn back.
“What’s wrong?”
His eyebrows fretted. The muscles in his jaw flexed as he tested thought against teeth, his head shaking ever so slightly.
“Hades.”
"You have to leave Troy, Meden,” he said, his chest heaved as the weight of those words left his body, now lying on her like a drachma placed on a dead man’s eyes. She shook it away, taking a step from Hades.
“Have to leave Troy? They need me,” she said, her voice low. The bats rustled behind her. She imagined their ears reaching for what she said.
Hades sighed, “Meden,” with a shake of his head. His eyebrows fretted in, etching the wrinkled skin more. He took a step forward, and she smelled fear in his silence. She took a step back, holding his gaze.
“Poseidon is furious,” Hades said.
“He’s always furious,” replied Meden.
“Meden,” his voice was firm now. “He had a council with Zeus about your treachery,”
Meden spat out, “Treachery?”
“Yes, you have been cavorting with the enemy, he said, helping the widows and children of soldiers they slayed for Olympus,” Hades said.
“For pride! That’s all that war was, that’s what it ever was. Pride. And what did Zeus say?”
“Nothing, no thunder, but I see lightning, Meden,” Hades whispered. “Poseidon has Hera backing him, he will have to move under their pressure.”
“What can widows and children do to the great Poseidon? Hades, I am only doing what I was meant to do, fill the gaps,” she said.
Hades stared into her. She looked into his dark eyes, but saw nothing behind them.
“There is a rumor that they are making temples for you. Meden, I am coming to warn you as a friend, leave, please,” he hissed.
Meden looked at his hands on her skin. The bones and sinew of his hands rolling like waves on his skin, water trying to chip away at rock.
“Meden -,”
“I filled the gaps he made, Hades,” Meden hissed. Meden gritted her teeth. Her jaw ached as her molars meshed together. Her throat stung at his retreat, standing quiet in front of her, studying her with his sullen eyes.
“You know I can’t.” she said between her teeth. Her eyes brimmed with tears.
Hades broke away from where he stood, moving in toward her in measured steps.
She thought of the women clinging to her. She could still feel the strain of their chiton on her body from their pleas. She thought of the cries that rolled in her head. How her brain filled with their screams. Their tears were sticky on her neck.
She thought of the eyes of children on her, full of wonder of where their father went.
She thought of the widows changing from their time together. She thought of their smiles returning. Of flowers being cut. Of a laugh breaking out somewhere in the ruin, and now, they were making a monument from it.
Hades stood tall in front of her, like a statue. Wouldn’t he be happy that someone like him was being taken care of? Finally, a deity aligned with death, praised.
“Even if he is divine,” she said.
“Yes, but when the said divine dwarfs you exponentially, you have to let the women cry and the boys become men,” Hades whispered. He pulled hair behind her ears and she pressed the apple of her cheek into his palms, warming his cold skin. She breathed in the scents of the Underworld; char, smoke, flowers. Bitterness bled into Meden’s mouth, slicking her throat. She peeled away from him, her chest growing tight from the acrid smell of the hellish blooms.
Hades’s eyes bore into her peripheral vision as she looked out at the remnants of dusk’s gloam.
“Persephone doesn’t know you’re here,” she whispered.
Hades flinched. He reached out to her, but she brushed his hand away, bristling at his gesture.
“You should go to her, she’ll be worried,” she muttered. A tear ran down her cheek, rolling across the numb Hades’ hand had been.
“I am just here to warn you,” Hades whispered.
Meden looked out into the night. Batwings brushed through her hair as they fled their domain in fleets. The last members of the colony were dissolving into the night. Hades sighed. She noted by the movement of his hand, he was worrying - running his chin with his thumb and pointer finger over and over until his skin flushed red for hours.
“Poseidon is offended, it’s not his right to be, but he is, and he will do anything he can-,”
“Hades,” she snarled. She swallowed as she watched his body tense. A god of death, a timeless man, a fear in the Pantheon, and yet, he hates when people yell. Meden’s stomach felt like it was dissolving, and everything inside her body was ebbing away.
“Please, Meden,” his fingers weaved into hers. Breath caught in Meden’s throat. She looked to see her hands meshed with his. How pale he was against her olive tanned skin. How they were so big compared to hers.
“Please know I can’t help you,” he whispered.
She felt his eyes on her, burning into her skin. She pulled against his grip, but he held fast, his fingers pressing hers into his palm. She rooted her heels into the stone and yanked against those damned hands, the skin burning her, the eyes burning her, his pain becoming hers - hurting more than anything.
“Please believe that you tried,” she whispered, Hades released her and she stumbled into her footing, staring into his face, their heavy breaths filling the cave with their haze.
The lines of his face looked deeper, and he cried, as if they hurt, as if these cracks were real and they were breaking them apart. Meden flexed her hands, the hunger to fill them etched every muscle with longing.
Her eyes drifted to the loudest gash, Hades’s mouth, still panting. She thought of how to close it.
“Speak of me often when I go,” she whispered. Hades tensed, eyes rounded on her. Tears washed down her face. She nodded at him. Ache pressing into her marrow.
Hades grasped her arms and kissed her, filling their emptiness in the dark, engraving each other’s body with limbs, with words, melding together like metal, to be linked together, to hold on for as long as they could, until the scent of flowers grew too strong.