Prompt: Apollo’s Daughter

Although she was blinded long ago by the brilliant yellow light that surrounded her, her other senses knew the room with intimate thoroughness. The table she lay on was cold marble, with shallow grooves in an elaborate design that held the sacred water flowing beneath her. There was a time she wore silver shackles on her hands and feet, when she still had energy to fight for her freedom. Now a slender silver pendant held the sliver of stone from Hades Gate that held her captive on the altar.

There was little sound in the central temple, and she could not hear beyond the pillars that stretched in a circle around the altar, supporting the basin of light above. If only the basin itself provided some relief from the light it held, some scant shade. She still clung to that small hope, even though she had realized the truth long ago. She was the light.

Temple servants came and went on silent feet, brushing their skin against the white marble floors. No one had spoken to her in generations. Their gentle fingers gave her food and water, cleaned her, brushed her hair. Long ago, there had been a young girl who hummed while she worked. She must have been discovered. She never returned.

The altar, the pillars, and the basin were her entire world. She had little memory of anything else. But she did remember. She clung to those small fragments as her only connection to the world beyond, to hope, to sanity, to life. She held them like treasured cards, lay them out in her mind’s eye, one by one, savoring every detail of each small moment. It was the only way she knew her name.

Hyacynthe. Apollo’s Daughter. Born of his grief and tears, mingled with the blood of his lover Hyacinth. Gift of Hades, in a moment of compassion. She remembered the soft spring hues of the Elysian Fields. She remembered the strength of her father’s arms. He held her once. She clung to that. He held her once.

Did he discard her? Or was she taken away? How could he not know where she was? Her temple, hidden in the uncharted peaks of Gangkhar Puensum, could not be hidden from his daily ride across the sky. Did her own father condemn her to this?

She held these questions close to her heart, and laid them out to examine like her precious memories. She had time. Eternally bathed in his tears, Hyacynthe shone with the Light of the World. It was her own living hell.

Dogs in house	Houdini
Time writing:	~45 minutes, including research
October word count:	994