Quinquennium

Throughout time, mankind has been obsessed with the concept of beauty. We have forever searched and changed things to become what people have deemed to be "beautiful." Every man has a different concept of what beautiful is, and many have forever forgotten so. Women often forget that one does not have to be thin to be beautiful, and men eternally forget that it is not often that women will choose for the amount of muscles had.

Men will sleep with the sultry, but will marry the innocent. Women will play with the beast, but will fall in love with the tame. Only rarely does this change. And through time, we have remembered, and then once more forgotten all that is said of beauty and love.

But what do we care of this? We shall stick to our insecurities far longer than we want. And so I have been commanded to tell a tale of beauty and of doubt, for expressly that reason. This will surely do nothing to comfort you readers. In fact, I guarantee it won't, and you'll scoff at it as anyone would and will. Yet I tale the tell nonetheless.

So, here I shall begin...

The gods would often watch the mortals below, laughing and pitying those who suffered for their vanity and their petty jealousies. That is, until one day the goddess of beauty had had enough of her title being abused. Where was the true beauty in people changing themselves so that they could be loved by others, but never loved by themselves?

"Surely they know that if they do not already love themselves, no one will love them quite the way they want to be loved?" she said, sighing as she watched from her position in the clouds. Her tiny kitten mewed, his blue eyes looking up at her curiously, as if trying to understand. She laughed and picked him up, but sobered quickly. "I worry for the children, little one," she whispered, "I worry that they will grow to be like their parents, and suffer even more than they. I worry that they will change themselves so thoroughly that there is nothing within that is recognizable." The kitten mewed again, scrambling from her lamp and plopping down on the cloud with a great huff.

"What is it that is causing this horrible thing to occur?" she said softly, and searched the surface for the culprit of the mess. To her dismay, she discovered it to be her nephew, a demigod whose title was one not so appreciated. He was the god of doubt, and he had often caused trouble in the past.

Angry, she plucked him from where he was methodically stripping a young girl of all dignity and self-confidence and placed him next to her in the clouds. "So it is you who is making my title horrible and unworthy of respect!" she cried, scowling at him fiercely.

He shrugged, his grin sheepish and pleased all at once. Like all those of divine descent, he'd been born with features pleasing to the human eye. Almond shaped eyes of brilliant green, a slim nose, broad shoulders and a thin waist. His mouth was full, his ears surrounded by chocolate curls. He had strong musculature; there was not a single weak bone in his body.

"It is my duty to plant the seeds of doubt, O Aunt Mine," he replied.

She sniffed, unsatisfied. "You overstep your bounds. Too much doubt now runs rampant."

He smiled, his straight, brilliant white teeth flashing. "Yes. Isn't it grand?"

"No!" she said and grabbed his hand, slapping it sharply. "You go too far. No god should have more power than one. Especially a demigod."

His expression turned sullen. "I realize that," he snarled.

"You need to be taught a lesson," she replied, "and so I shall give you one. You do not understand the hardships of being called unsightly and homely. You are a god! What could you know of this? I know of it only because I am the goddess of beauty, and see people who were not touched by my divine hand purely by mistake."

"I need no lesson. I am doing what I was born to do. It is my divine right!"

"Divine right or not, you've gone too far and understand nothing of it. You were born to plant the seeds of doubt in those who needed doubt, not those who would be better off without it!" She grabbed him, and touched his nose with a graceful finger. He felt it swell beneath her touch.

"What are you doing?" he exclaimed, trying to pull away.

"Teaching." She wrapped her other hand around his wrist, and both of his hands became deformed, unrecognizable. "Cease this game!" he shouted, but she did not listen. She wrapped her fingers around his ankle, and it became lame and thin, incapable of supporting his weight. He gasped as she traced a finger down his jaw line, the skin loosening considerably as she went. Everything she did made his appearance worsen. His hair thinned, his muscles weakened to blobs of skin, spidery veins traveled up is neck in throbbing lines, and his skin was so pale that he looked sick.

"I give you three things," she said when she had finished, "Your eyes will have the most beautiful green in the world." She kissed his closed eyelids softly. "Your lips shall be the most beautifully shaped." She pecked him softly on the lips. "And your voice shall be the most enriching and lovely sound on the planet." She kissed him again, only deeply, and then withdrew. "If you are ever to remove this, you must be told from a different person each time that these qualities are beautiful without any coercion." And with that, she pushed him down, watching with amusement as he fell head over heels to the ground below.

The kitten mewed by her side, and she patted him on the head with satisfaction. "That ought to keep him from ruining me, wouldn't you say?"

He landed with a small thump in the middle of a field of wild flowers. He rubbed his head, drawing back in horror as a clump of his hair fell out in his hands. Dropping the tuft, he scrambled backwards and tried to stand, only to stumble on his weak ankle. Limping towards the nearest road and wincing with each step, he pondered his situation, searching for a loophole. Finding none, he sat on the side of the road, waiting for someone to come by so he might speak with them for a while, have them comment on his few charms that remained.

A little girl passed by, carrying a few small flowers in a wicker basket. Her bonnet hung loosely around her petite neck, her eyes still wide and full with wonder. Upon sighting him, she gaped and began to go in the other direction. She was five at most, her chubby little fingers clutching the basket desperately.

"Oh little girl!" he called.

She didn't respond and kept on walking, glancing back every few moments. "Little girl!" he called again, his rich voice extending farther than he'd thought. An elderly woman emerged from a tiny farmhouse. "Grandmother!" cried the child, and ran to the hag, flowers spilling in her wake. "Grandmother," she whispered as she reached her arms, "is that a monster over there?" She pointed with a round finger at the god of doubt.

All this the demigod heard with his divine hearing. A pang set in his heart. A pang he'd never felt before now. He frowned, and turned in the opposite direction of the girl, stumbling away with his awkward walk.

A year later, he had not received a single compliment, only disgusted glances and kicks from hard boots from people who were "in too much of a hurry to deal with the dumb and the repulsive." He'd tried to use his own powers to remove himself from the situation, but to no avail.

He now sat in a small street, looking up at the clouds, hoping to glimpse the goddess of beauty and beg her forgiveness. A young woman, her arms laden with books and quills tripped and dropped all of her belongings in the mud beside him. The sludge covered half of his face, and grumbling he was about to tell the woman off. She rushed over to him, spouting apologies and wiping the mud from his face. Her hand stopped as they ran over one of his brows.

"My," she whispered, her voice like a bell, "what beautiful eyes you have." She flushed and picked up her books and feathered pens, then rushed away.

He touched his cheek for a moment, as if he would be returned to normal, but had no such luck. Cursing, he stood, and began to meander the streets of the city he had chosen to live out this miserable existence.

Two years later, he was in a jail, arrested on being a disturbance of the peace. It was mildly insulting. A demigod in jail? Unbelievable. And what he'd endured the past two years even more so. Kicked around and beaten. Snide comments and rude whispers following in his wake. His pride had diminished to barely a smudge, but still enough for him to be furious over his position.

He stood to go and speak with one of the guards, muttering to himself how completely ridiculous this was when he stumbled, his weak ankle giving out on him quite suddenly. He fell on his face on the dirt floor of his cell. His cell mate picked him up, and heaved him to the one chair occupying the room. "Are you alright?" asked his cellmate, his voice rough and gravelly.

"I'm fine," he replied, rubbing his ankle.

"Say," said the man, "that's a nice voice you got there. Are you a singer, perhaps? I'm sure the women have called it beautiful more than once. I would." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, looking at the demigod who gave a rueful smile and shook his head.

"No, never has that been said, although I thank you kindly for it," he said.

Five years after his curse, he was in a tavern, having a pint of beer and watching the mortal beings in their gambling and drunken conversation. He sipped it slowly, his eyes catching onto a woman that he found to be beautiful. She was plain to everyone else. Her hair was a mousy brown, her lips somewhat thin, and her eyes a dull gray. Thin and with barely any chest, she didn't seem to have any physical attributes.

But she was beautiful to him. Her laugh sparkled through the room, her eyes alight with merry-making, her steps graceful and prim. "Say," he said as she passed him by, "you really are lovely."

She smiled a little, and pecked him on the lips. "As beautiful as your lips?" She shook her head at him, and left, laughing. Yet she had meant what she said, and a tugging on his body meant that his curse had been lifted. The goddess of beauty plucked him once more from the Earth to the Sky and said, "Well, you've done it. You've learnt your lesson."

"Excellent," he said sarcastically.

The goddess sniffed at his rude tone, and flicked his nose. His body changed immediately to what it had once been. "Now may I leave?" he said, his tone dripping with acid.

The goddess wrinkled her nose. "Just because you've learned this lesson doesn't mean I'm not inclined to teach another," she sneered, and pushed him back down to the ground.

He landed on his feet like a cat and strode quickly back to the tavern. Upon arriving there, he sought out the beautiful plain girl, and grabbed her hand.

"Hello," he said, a smile on his perfect lips, "Care to have a dance with me?"

"Do I know you?" she asked. "You seem awfully familiar."

"No," he said, "perhaps in another life."