To be a god in a mortal world was both a simple and lovely thing, and also a question of worth. The body was fallible; it got old, it got ugly. The mind of a god stayed clear forever, through the endless lifetimes – it bestowed the divine one with a particular gleam in their eye, as if they could see beyond the boundaries of the normal realm.

It was this gleam that told Ampoule all that she needed to know.

In truth, he didn’t know her. Neither did she know him, but there was something so great about him that it made her knees to bend, and her mind to utter silent reverences. It wasn’t often that Ampoule was the one who supplicated, and she relished the opportunity to do so, when the opportunity presented itself. After all, was there nothing more holy than the relations amongst the holy things themselves?

Looking up from her bow, the nymph watched the golden ichor pulse in his potent gaze. Then she lifted, realising she was as uncertain about the next moves as he might be, both so unexpected was this meeting – one of two strangers, two eternal souls that had mattered naught to one another, but which now had a thread that tied them together through the very elements which could not be bound.

Furthermore, Ampoule had been very fulfilled in her lonesome, and had easily grew accustomed to solitude. She realized that perhaps she had not spoken to another soul in days, perhaps weeks or months. His tongue then spoke the same language as that gleam in his eye. Her voice felt raspy in her throat, but still her mouth opened to speak, and the lilting sounds of greek came out.

There are many of us, if you know where to look. her voice, already smoothed over from its momentary unuse, spoke with a jocular familiarity. Certainly those who existed as she would come if he were to call, in a way that the nymphs heeded no other call. In the trees, in the rivers, she suggested, with a flutter of her thick veil of lashes. They were entirely governed by nature, and the gods were the forces behind that nature.

Therefore, he ruled her.

If there were others, Ampoule had yet to find them. In truth, she had put forth no true effort to search, but this new acquaintance instilled her with new confidence that her sisters may just be concealed, fearful, and unwilling to be found. What may this nymph call you, god of gods? She wondered if she had ever spoken his name in reverence before, and waited for his name to unlock a memory smothered in the recesses of her mind.