THE QUEEN AND THE KING

Two homeless men sit on the curb One of them is holding a cardboard sign

The for th. He is a bit dr unk. Another woman and a little gir l sit on a bench not far from them. The gir l has he is tr ying so hard not to. You pull out your wallet and take out twenty dollar s. You admit, you didn’t think brought more money, food too. You crouch down in front of the one holding the sign and hold out the bill. He stares at you for a second, then hugs you tightly. His unshaven face is scr aggly and dashed with scar s that match his ar ms. His eyes are a deep clay red. One of them is made of glass that points downwards to his mangled cheek. “Thank you, ” he whisper s in your ear. “Thank you. ” He pulls back to show the money to his fr iend, whose eyes immediately br ighten. The dr unk shakes your hand enthusiastically One of his eyes are a dull olive green

The other is a maroon wine

You set your backpack to the wall Both men stare at you.

“Hello, Ares,” you say to the one with the sign To the dr unk, “Dionysus ”

“Aaron,” says the veter an.

“Diego,” mutter s the dr unk “What do you want?”

You frown at an old discarded syr inge lying next to Diego. He catches your gaze sadly and shakes his head. “Not me ,” he whisper s. “A fr iend. He- she died yesterday.” Aaron let out a dr y sob then cr umples against the wall, shiver ing. You move to comfor t him and when you touch his hand, it is as cold as ice . Diego sits next to him, whisper ing with alcohol slur red words. Soon, he recover s, though paler than ever.

“Why are you here?” he says. “Why am I here?”

“Tell me how it feels to be br ave ,” you r asp, tur ning away, “tell me how it feels to be happy.” of war mth into the cold room. It’s dar k out, a few of the star s twinkle lightly and the moon is a full circle in the sky. You send a silent pr ayer to Ar temis, even though she is not there . Even though she is human and you haven’t found her yet. It’s going to take a long time , you know It’s only been a couple dozen human year s since your family fell, but already they’ve split and disper sed You’ve only found four out of hundreds, but four is better than none

No hear th is a hear th without its family.