A sultry world, a bygone oldfangled dream, a landscape the youth bearing the forged title Eros knew not, yet, a realm that penetrated the boy with the spectral sensation of nostalgia. Ceaseless luminescence plagued the amorous arbour, its source an undiscovered uncelebrated unknown, for no sun shimmered in the empyrean backdrop of blue.
Effervescent trees of vibrant animation swayed listlessly in tandem with a ghostly zephyr, a gust that failed to register upon the bewildered boy's asphyxiated senses. Heads of emerald sage bearing a body of wood obscured all, its form lanky, spindly without rigorous training nor the pompous name of oak to support its backing, merely flora of laurel. Velvet bodies spasmodically lay chaotically strewn, bearing myriad colours, from that of darkened crimson to splendiferous resplendent shades of pure, virgin white, never to be tainted through their seraphic bulwark of thorns. Aromatic ambrosial perfumes interbred with the air, their seed, their child, the offspring of their efforts little more than the heavenly pungence that pressed upon Eros's snow-white cowl of flesh. Ceaseless roots of grass, grand and untamed, lay sovereign atop the earth, their verdant hands of supple verdigris obscuring a path of cultivated, sophisticated alabaster, unblemished and unadulterated.
Impressions subdued and melodious echoed not amidst the realm of virginal purity, sole shrieks of the lascivious kneading of grass the mere verse to erupt amidst Eros's stride, his mind lay wanton, disused, unperturbed and unfocused he merely wandered, his body instinctually pursuing the path of pristine unprofaned creation…until abruptly, the boy stopped, his eyes, the left a permanent shade of enchanting pink, the other the same chocolate brown hue as usual, quivering, though not with fear or remembrance but mesmeric bewitchment.
A creation worthy of the epithet celestial, a transcendent structure beyond that of mortal comprehension, despite its apparent simplicity. Corinthian columns crafted of the most deistic marble stood undaunted, uncaring to the wrath the heavens may impose on their audacious ascent. Floral patterns akin to that of burgeoning robust roses loomed atop such heads as though a clandestine attempt to disguise the blasphemous venture to a false claim of godhood. A cast dome of transcendent gilded Aurelian splendiferously scintillated, its refracted luminescence akin to the sun that loomed not in the cosmic canvas. The structure was simply titanic, bearing a height eclipsing ten metres and a radius half of that, circular in make, a panoramic view of the realm lay in wait for all that occupied its open-aired contents, for no walls veiled the construct, merely pillars and a floor of the same primaeval virginal marble.
Breadths of the most somniferous enthralling pinks predominated the ethereal visage, tendrils of cursed thorns pervertedly prostituting themselves to the sanctified structure, their Nephilim offspring the pink roses of erotic concupiscence.
'Beautiful', Eros wordlessly murmured, his figure and mind harassed by the exclusive portrait of the paradisiacal monopteros, legs of negligent imbecilic behest nomadically stuttering towards the seraphic craft of picturesque ascent. The unconquerable ineluctable aroma of blossoming flora scraped against his bark of snow, akin to the vixenish voluptuous words of the devil, they whispered, corrupted, abandoned the youth's rationale with thoughts of perverted competence. Soon the amiable phenomenon of the sultry touch of grass dissipated, the embrace of Gaia discarded, replaced by splendiferous sanguine blithe of marble, the resplendent choir of steps greeted by the reverent structure.
Sights of pink wreathed and nettled with dreary brambles, a realm of empyrean spotted solely through the fenestella window of roses, it was as though the instant Eros entered the heavenly item, the curtains of flora that antecedently appeared postured and prostituted to every wile of the ostentatious pompous columns of deific craft drew shut, detritus of luminescence sporadically perforated the thistle blanket, chaotically littering the sunless realm with a cherubic grace, petals of pink fluttered listlessly scattering atop the land upon which Eros loomed. Darkness, a void of ebony. Despite the occasional beam of heavenly descent, such cloudless phosphoresce failed to cradle Eros's bewildered visage. The boy appeared distant, torn between two worlds, in an endless struggle between dream and reality. He wished to abdicate the realm, discard the curtain of onyx that clouded his gaze, to return to the picturesque performance of hegemony he oh so desired….And it was in the midst of such aspiration that Eros heard it, a voice akin to the embodiment of erotism, a steamy breath of desire, the amorous words he had heard merely once prior.
"Darling, you finally decided to meet me!" The discorporate tone of Psyche called, yet no body was to be seen, veiled in the darkness, such words boundlessly echoed, stimulating the twin orifice bearing the title of ears the youth possessed from ceaseless angles without distinguishable origin. An acute encumbrance pressed encouragingly upon his obscured back, retaining neither warmth nor tactile feel, twin orbs of grandiose make, yet distinctly spectral, an ethereal visage. A hedonistic voluptuous perfume conspicuously at odds with the prevailing odour of floral stature interbred amidst his sinus, amorous and arousing, his cheeks coated in snowfall soon simmered, his mind a tempest of ardent emotions solely restrained by his urge to befall the sight of the supposed spectre bearing the title Psyche.
Flailed motions, spasmodic and impulsive, erupted from the youth's investigative visage, coiled and turned Eros's neck twisted with his torso soon following suit, like a tightly tortile spring, his gaze lay panoramic, a full 180-degree view, and yet, he saw nothing, for Psyche merely twisted with his every motion, clandestine never to be seen, a mere idea, a notion bearing no body. "Where am I? What's going on?" Eros stammered, his visage in constant contention with the shrouded valence of jet, his senses unknowingly obscured, his ears deaf to the world, solely receptive to every breath of the entity christened Psyche. Skin unsuspecting untaught to the passing Zephyr, eyes a vaporous miasma coveting lasciviousness.
"Hmmm…" Psyche murmured, "I don't know? At the moment, I'm merely embracing my beloved!" The feminine apparition continued, her statement intermittently shattered by steamy inhalations of Eros's nescient corpse.
"What do you mean you don't know? How did I get here, and what do you mean by-" Eros refuted his brain a sizzling mass of stammered, impassioned notions. He wished to know everything, to covet all the knowledge he could put his doll-like hands upon, from the source of the realm and dystopian delusions upon which he tread to the meaning of the beauty's statement she interjected upon, interrupting his inquisitive query as to the nature of their relationship.
"I brought you here, though I hate to admit it…couldn't you have just remained oblivious and let me pretend that you came here of your own accord. As for what or where this place is- I have no idea?" Psyche purred, a gentle, rhythmic motion akin to a sloven hand tracing the contours of Eros's face in a self-indulgent, possessive manner. The boy's eye of pink momentarily shimmering with utterance spilt from the incorporeal being's luscious lips of enshrouded craft. "Though isn't that fine, my darling apostle? We can't be privy to everything- can we?"
That word, once more such a label attached itself to Eros's person, a forgone appellation, a title upon which he referred himself, albeit unknowingly. He had never heard the word, nor was it part of his learned curriculum, blockaded by the world to that of men. Intrigue, ceaseless, infinite yearning, such solitary utterance enraptured the mind of the youth. Eros wished to know, desired to understand why this spectral figment called him such, and more importantly, who psyche was.
"Apostle?" Eros rapturously blurred, "What do you mean, apostle? What are you- I mean, I know your name…our name, but still-" Eros steamingly ventured, his eyes of heterochromatic craft scintillating in a hallucinatory attempt of characterising the non-existent luminescence of the dissipated canvass of azure.
"By apostle, I mean…." Psyche blurted, her mind and thoughts disjointed, inarticulate, incomprehensible. She merely mumbled. What did she mean? The feminine tone had no idea. Such a statement wholly felt natural to her, a bygone daydream of peerless nostalgia, a concept she had heard drolled listlessly yet one she couldn't fully apprehend. "You're my chosen, my darling, you who I share my gift with, who I entrust the unborn future. All you possess is mine, and likewise, all I am is yours!" Psyche sirenic-ally tempted, her every word a stratagem of enticement, albeit unknowingly.
"Your power was formerly mine, maimed and fragmentary it dwells within you now, my dearest darling- That I know, without a shadow of doubt. However, it is weak. We are weak." Psyche continued much to the seduced youth's bemusement, his mind processing her statement at a lackadaisical rate. Eros knew that matchmaker wasn't veritably his gift, that he wasn't an esper from the very instant he called his name. He was something more significant, an apostle - whatever that meant, the conjoined partner of the deity who once bore the precedent title of Eros. "But…I speculate you can change that, my dear Eros. My memory is foggy, clouded, without knowledge of what I formerly was and what I now am, though I know one thing. Love, boundless affection for you and solely you. And that is the way forwards,"
With every syllable, every utterance that spilt forth from the entity's lips her words, her tone proceeded to shift from flirtatious eroticism to something darker, a crazed obsession towards her beloved. This was her will, her desire passed on, the precipice of the beginning, the first step for the boy named Eros.
"Claim their love. Make them fall. Whether they be divine or mortal. That is the only path for you, my darling. To reap the affection of all who walk the world." Psyche proclaimed, Eros's left eye a luminescent sun of infinite brightness, a stark contrast to the maelstrom void that loomed underfoot, the beckoning of reality from dream and delusion, the divorce of fantasy that Eros embraced, he would have to wake soon, he had received his quest, the path laid by the figment that captured his back. However, he still knew not what Psyche was. His lips moved, contorted to unnatural angles, his tongue flailing haphazardly, seemingly without direction despite the boy's fervent call, no words spilt from his chalice of flesh, his throat failing to consume the air, he was being drowned, the pool of black a mere patchwork copy of the space that formerly circumvented his lungs.
Eros's question would go unanswered. The boy believed as such, the pressing sensation lacking warmth and fibrous feel had dissipated, removing herself from the youth's soon-to-be clandestine visage, ears drowned yet without sound, eyes darkened without light. Eros heard it, the final parting from his benefactor.
"As to who I am? I'm Psyche, a god."