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Mortal eyes stare into her heavenly ones. "In the darkness, you will be my light."

She replies, "And in the coldness, you will be my warmth."

"Forever, you will be my heart."

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One after another, they appear in Anthea's mind. Like lightning, quick and with no warning. She should have been used to it by now, should have been used to the pain they bring to both her spirit and her divine body. But she isn't. Every time, the hurt is too much. Every time, the ache is almost unbearable.

She shouts as her body twists and the bittersweet pieces of overlapping memories flash inside her mind: a young dark-skinned tribe man sees her, a blonde blue-eyed man lovingly holds her hand, a teenage girl blushing at the sight of her, a samurai swearing he loves her more than his own life.

A thousand years of cherished memories.

Each one of them starts with a search and ends with a tragedy.

All painful. All agonizing.

But in all of them, he was there and that is enough for Anthea to endure the pain.

And here she is again.

The number of guards stationed outside her room under the order of her mother, the goddess of the moon Seluna, do not know that she is hiding a Cup of Mortality and a Mirror of Gaea with her. Those two items are all she needs to become human and to go back to earth. Just one more. Please, she pleads to the goddesses of fate. She can almost see their wrinkly face and their dry lips smirking, knowing how her fate will end.

The moment the seemingly unending pain passes and is already gone, a thick white fog gobbles the deity. It grips every inch of her godly body and pulls her into the glowing Mirror of Gaea. She braces herself as she enters the portal and is instantaneously dropped to the familiar grassy and dirty earthly ground.

She made it.

Clenching the damp soil and sod underneath her, she coughs blood. Warm, gold liquid smears her bottom lip. She wipes it using the palm of her hand. Anthea knows that it's not from the fall, but from something else. From something deep within her that is eating and destroying her spirit.

She looks around. Together with the moon and the stars, tall lights illuminate the wide piece of land that is covered with well-tended grass. The trees nearby are not as gargantuan as those in the heavens but big enough to serve as shelter from the day's sun when morning comes. Now, their shadows stretch on the dark ground. There are wooden benches here and there and a concrete road nearby. She's in a park in the middle of the night.

Quickly, Anthea sheds her robe of gold and silver to wear the plain t-shirt and jeans she magically conjured from her silky black hair. After years of living in the land of the mortals, she is now used to blending in with its peoples.

He should be nearby or else the Mirror would've dropped her in another place.

'Have I met you before?' Those are the words he always says when he sees her for the first time in his lifetime and Anthea longs to hear those words again. She wonders how he looks now. In what form will he surprise her, love her, and be with her? Her spirit trembles with just the thought of him. Just one lifetime more and she knows she'll be happy forever. It'll be enough. She tries to convince herself.

Upon walking along the side of the park, she spots a group of people huddled on one of the wooden benches. She heads towards them.

A middle-aged man, more than 6ft tall and in a tailored suit, stands up and sees her approaching. The moment their eyes meet, he gapes. Anthea is close enough to the group when she hears him say to another, "Doesn't she look familiar?"

The deity stops. Could he be... She walks towards the man and looks straight into his eyes. Her voice is gentle and laced with deep affection when she whispers, "Dagtum?" No matter how many names and how many lifetimes, for her, he will always be the shy, kindhearted Dagtum who she met for the first time many, many years ago.

"Dag... what?" The man seems lost.

And the core of Anthea's spirit doesn't shake in excitement nor throb from overflowing love. Instead, she feels nothing for the human standing in front of her. The deity frowns, disappointed. She is about to leave when she hears someone say, "Who is that, my child?" Her chest tightens even though she doesn't have a heart. Instantly, she turns to where the voice is coming from and sees a very old and very sickly man sitting in a wheelchair. His breathing is uneven and it seems like he's gasping for air. Starlight dances inside the brilliant brown orbs of his eyes. There is a long silence as he stares at the deity. And when Anthea is starting to think that the stillness will never end, the old man speaks again. "H-have I... Have I met you before?"

Tears sting Anthea's eyes. As if mimicking the mortal, she too tries to catch her every breath. My love. How she missed him. Longed for him.

"Ah!" A teenage girl with bob-cut hair exclaims as she holds her cellphone in front of the rest of the group. "Here. That's why she looks familiar. Grandpa painted her before!" On the screen of the device is, indeed, a portrait of Anthea in the robes she wore when she met Dagtum for the first time. This teenager should be his granddaughter. So, the rest of the group is his family.

Anthea is hurt by the truth she learned, the ache more painful than when she drank the Cup of Mortality. She feels betrayed, the amount of sadness and jealousy suffocating her. She can't believe he'd fallen in love and is spending a lifetime with somebody else. When the Mirror is used as a portal to the land of the mortals, a less powerful deity like her has no control over the exact date when she'll be able to reach earth through it. In the past one thousand years, Dagtum had always waited for her. Even without a memory of his past lives, he'd always felt a longing for someone. And the moment they met, he was sure that she was the one he'd been waiting for to love and to be with. He was always like that. Every single time. Every lifetime.

But not this?

The deity glances at the mortals: two kids less than ten years old, the teenage girl, a middle-aged couple, the man who stared at her before, and an old woman holding the thin hand of Dagtum. His wife? Anthea is soaked in an extreme envy she hasn't felt before.

Why, now, my love? When we would've been lovers again even for a short time?

Should she just kill them and be with her Dagtum? That will be easy. Really tempting. But Anthea knows that he will hate her. He absolutely hates it when she manipulates, hurts, or kills someone.

The old Dagtum looks like he wants to speak but, too weak, he just gasps. The old woman beside him taps his hands lovingly before she turns to Anthea and asks, "What is your name, young one?"

"Anthea," she answers.

The woman smiles and the rest of the group begins to mutter. "Everyone, I need a moment with this lady." After a bit, the children and the middle-aged mortals stand up and prepare to leave while the teenager voices her complaints, eager to find out what exactly is happening. "No. You need to go. This won't take too long. Ah, and Anna, I need your phone." Frowning the girl hands her the device and follows the rest of her family towards a bench farther away. The old woman looks at the deity once more. "My name is Dalia and those are my children and grandchildren."

Yes. Anthea had already figured that much.

"I knew you are real!" Dalia glances at her family, ensuring that they are far enough, then, cheerily she goes near the deity and, using the phone, shows Anthea picture after picture of paintings. They all contain Anthea's image -- all beautiful and skillfully done, all from the memories she and Dagtum shared. That one when they first met, that one when they ran away from the town that accused them of sorcery, that one in the Eastern isles, and some more.

Anthea is deeply touched.

Does that mean that... Dagtum remembers... everything? But then why-- Oh, she doesn't care!

Her spirit trembles like how it used to whenever she thought of him. Unable to contain her feelings, she encloses the man's frail body in a tight embrace. Kneeling on the grass, sparkling tears fall from her eyes as she calls him "my love" over and over again.

She can't take it anymore.

Would this be the last time?

"I-I'm... sorry," she hears him say. "I'm old."

The deity shakes her head, feeling her shoulder get wet with Dagtum's tears.

Dalia speaks again, "Danny had been drawing you since we were little. He's been waiting for you. My brother. He always believed in you."

Brother?

They're siblings.

Anthea glances back at Dalia.

"He would always tell us about you--the lady in his dreams. Told us that you live with the stars. That's why he's been obsessed with stargazing. Wanted to have one last look at the sky before he..." Dalia's words quiver. She's about to cry too. "Thank goodness you showed up. I've always believed in the supernatural, you see. But to actually see you. And you meeting Danny. This is a miracle. Ah, I'm getting goosebumps. "

Anthea stands up, lays one soft hand on the face of the woman, and thanks her with utmost sincerity. The deity is about to say more but she suddenly coughs, the searing pain seems to rip her spirit apart. Thick, golden blood pours out from her lips.

"A-are you okay? G-gold?" Dalia panics a little, not knowing what to do.

The deity almost falls to the ground as her painful coughs persist, but she holds on to Dagtum's shoulder.

"She's dying," a heavenly voice descends upon them. Dalia's eyes widen as she sees the moon split and a beautiful figure of a woman with a glittering crown on her head steps on a cloud. The cloud brings her to the ground, towards them. She's frowning but it doesn't wound her beauty.

"Aphrodite." The mortal woman gapes in awe.

"Not quite," says the goddess. Then she waves one powerful hand over her. "This is only just a dream." Instantly, Dalia falls asleep and lays on the ground. Her family is already dozing on the bench far from them.

Clenching her chest, Anthea puts herself in between Dagtum and Seluna. "M-mother. I told you, I love him and I will never leave him!"

"You really are quite a fool. Can't you see? He's already dying. How many minutes do you think you have together? So few."

"T-then, I'll stay for another lifetime!"

"You can't!" The cloud brings Seluna closer to her daughter. "You know that since Allfather forbade deities to fall in love with a mortal, those who do and spend a life on earth sacrifice their immortality. They become weaker until they catch the human's mortality. You've been coming and living here for a thousand years! Your heavenly body is already sick. You're dying! One lifetime more and you'll completely vanish, you foolish child!"

"Mother, I love him! With all of my existence! I wanted to spend this one lifetime on earth with him then just watch him from heaven after. But, now I realize I cannot do that. I do not want to be separated from him. Ever!"

"So you choose death, then?"

"I choose him."

Seluna's eyes close as she tries to keep her composure despite the anger and worry whirling inside her, then she opens them again. "Come out," she commands and Anthea knows who she's talking to.

Dagtum is already dead. His soul emerges from his current mortal shell. The moment their eyes meet, Dagtum and Anthea share a long and ardent embrace. The human cups the deity's face with his translucent hands and gives her a kiss. "Don't die, dearest. Please don't. I cannot take it," Dagtum whispers lovingly to Anthea's ear.

"But I wanna be with you. I cannot bear to be away from you and to just watch you wait for me every single lifetime."

"No heaven nor mortal land will ever welcome you both." With her powers, Seluna is kind enough to prevent the portal to afterlife to open.

The lovers share another passionate kiss.

No heaven nor mortal land.

When the two look again into each other's eyes, they seem to know what the other is thinking. Holding hands, they turn to the goddess. Seluna gasps. She had feared that this would happen. But she already thought that it would be inevitable.

"I care for you deeply, my dear child," the goddess confesses. "But you are all grown up now and you are free to make your own decisions. I will miss you."

"And I you, mother."

Seluna steps away from the portal and watches as Dagtum and her daughter walk into it. But they do not walk towards heaven. No. Together, they choose to enter the path towards the barren, sunless land of the underworld, where there is nothing but death but they could be with each other. For all of eternity.

Mortal eyes stare into Anthea's heavenly ones. "In the unending darkness of the underworld, you will be my light."

She replies, "And in its eternal coldness, you will be my warmth."

"In the world where there is no love, forever, you will be my heart."