The tension in my arm was like nothing I'd ever felt before, and between you and me, that was saying something. I felt the very fibers of the bow straining as my eyes fought the icy wind. The golden hue of the arrowhead was only a blur near my fingertips. I concentrated and took one slow breath after the next. The clouds plumed from my mouth feebly, like a dying steam engine before being swept away into the void that clung to me. Oh, I could have used a rifle, or even a crossbow. Laser sights and digital tracking sensors were all the rage, but it just didn't feel the same. Besides, love was supposed to be personal.
Karen was typical enough among young mortals. She was bright, cared about her health, and was generally thoughtful of her fellow beings...but, she was also a believer. She didn't light candles or go to Sunday assembly for that other God, but she radiated the glow of belief nonetheless. We could all see it from our solace above the clouds: those little embers that every believer had among the ashes of the mortal worlds.
She didn't exactly believe in me, per se. Things would have been so much easier if she had. No; I had been reduced to an ornament on a gift shop card. A passing notion used to sell candy, or some other cheap token of affection. I suppose you could say she believed in me- if only because Karen believed in love. She wanted it so desperately she could taste it in the morning air. She could see it in the couples she passed on the streets, or on the inter-planetary shuttles. It was obvious in the quiet moments she stole from the street-side cafe windows while waiting for her bus. It was there when people held hands walking home together. I blinked away the frost from my eyes again, and kept searching. She needed a golden arrow more than anyone I had seen in a long, long time.
The damned wind started to turn harsh and I could feel a lump of ice forming in the meat of my thigh. A sheen of frost had formed along the arch of my foot, but after a quick flex, the feeling subsided. I heard a faint crack, and then a soft sound, like tinkling glass. My hair felt stiff and windswept and after the countless days, the only company I had apart from the chill wind was the sound the bow made as it creaked under the strain. My fingertips held the string taut, but I lost feeling in them long ago. When I thought about it, I couldn't honestly remember how long I'd been there waiting; days at least, weeks, maybe even longer. I blinked back the frost again.
I could see movement out in the mortal worlds. They churned like colonies of ants burrowing on a tide of shifting sand. It used to be teeming with light, pinpoints glowing like suns against the black, but now it was rare to see even one faint ember in every thousand pits of darkness. That was why finding a believer like Karen felt so priceless to me, and why finding a believer that wasn't already paired to someone else was so daunting. I looked constantly from world to world, searching through every tide of shifting bodies and faithless husks until I caught the faintest glimpse.
In a small corner of a hive-like planet called Nexus, I saw him. My heart almost stopped and I questioned my senses. Was he really there at all? I blamed my fatigue and boredom-but he was there, at least for a moment before he was swallowed up again by the masses. I turned a fraction on my heel and broke the ice off my fingertips. He moved like a bobber in a river being dragged down by an angry fish. I waited until he resurfaced, and when he did, I saw my shot. His heart was exposed and laid wide open to me: so I let the arrow fly. I screamed as my arms relaxed and the pent up force was released. The bolt streaked through the void of time and space, and as it crossed into the mortal thread it became more than any mere bolt. By the time it reached Nexus, it traveled faster than light and carried the weight of a megaton bomb. Shame that it hit Jack in the middle of the best dream he'd ever had.
It took me a few minutes to get the feeling back in my arms, and then nearly an hour to regain the strength I needed to stand up without falling off the edge of Olympus. The rocky outcrop I occupied was windswept and layered in ice, but after I got the blood pumping in my feet again, I was able to step as lively as ever. By the time I reached the braziers of the temples' square, I was dry enough not to leave footprints from the melted ice.
Revelry was common among the palace square these days. Most of the Elders were so eager to celebrate anything that every solstice celebration lasted nearly to the next. The Winter solstice held on longer than the Fall, but it finally seemed to reach a fever pitch. Music and dance, laughter and joy: they reverberated off the walls while cups overflowed onto the marble stones underfoot. I found my wife in deep celebration with Ceres and Vestal. A servant spied me moving through the crowd and pursued me with a cup in her hand. When I reached for Psyche's side, she stopped short and turned around, ready to apologize for the infraction. Then her eyes lit up, and she threw her hands around my shoulders. She also immediately recoiled as shivers ran down her body.
"By us all, you're freezing!" Psyche said, and handed me her cup. The servant scowled at me, and retreated into the crowd. I drained the cup and handed it back.
"I did not mean to interrupt for long, but it is done. Karen and Jack are to be united. My arrow struck true not but a moment ago."
To her credit, Phsyche did not laugh the way the others often did. She smiled sweetly at me, and I felt warmth begin to radiate out of my core. To everyone else, it seemed my ministrations into the mortal thread were an antiquated fantasy. It was something to be left behind the way a child might leave a crib toy at marriage. She hugged me again despite the chill that was evident through her gown when we parted. I bid her to return to the festival, and headed toward our home where I could lay my bow in its cradle.
As the sound of merriment dimmed behind me, I felt a sense of jubilation start to creep into my veins. Karen and Jack were just two of but a small handful of souls that I had been able to influence this year. And no matter what anyone else chose to think, the fact was that true mortal believers were getting fewer every season. The evidence was right above our eyes, if only they would look up from their drinks long enough to see it. In truth, we were dying just as much as the mortals' belief in us was. However, the memory of the ambrosia on my lips helped drive the thought from my mind. After changing my clothes and ensuring my bow was as it should be, I heeded the call of the Elders and returned to the celebration.
The sky above the Pantheon was beautiful that night. Apollo and Diana were dancing in the center of the square upon my return and I took my place among the onlookers. Apollo stood a full head over the moon goddess, and their dance was an amazing spectacle of light and shadow that cast a brilliant spectrum of color into the heavens. I watched the beams of light spiral into the darkness and burst into gorgeous blooms. With my eyes upward, a goblet was thrust into my hands and nearly half of its contents splashed against my toes.
"This is no time to be somber, my boy, feast upon the bounty!" Bacchus laughed as he sidled up to me. His nose was as red as ever and a sheen of sweat made his face shine.
"Overjoyed, yes, my friend, and not a bit somber. Maybe just a bit sober is all," I said and raised the glass he handed to me to drink.
"Well, we can certainly fix that, can't we?"
Even as I sipped, my glass refilled. We toasted time and again until the dance of Apollo and Diana ended, and the crowd applauded. Psyche and I joined and parted like waves crashing on the beach, and I allowed myself to be swept around the crowd. At some point, I came to rest near my mother's seat at the main dais and took my rest. I felt the rush of the festival in my veins, and the damn cup Bacchus touched just wouldn't drain. I tipped it over and watched it dribble out over the stones. I started to count off the seconds, but the steady stream just wouldn't relent.
