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I'll climb every mountain and
swim every ocean,
. . .just to be with you.

~Lewis Capaldi

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   I feel like a train has run into me, as Óshún mentions the greenish mixture mother made her drink. Anubis' slime!

Mother why!?

That disgusting concoction has effects even on a god and worst on humans. It makes humans brain dead and closer to death than ever before.

More gratitude to Zeus for gifting my Óshún with immortality, if not I might have been too late!

I suppressing my anger by running my fingers unto her palms, the more she explains her ordeal, the more I want to punish my own mother.

"We need to take you back right now!" Anteros barks, his anger is also directed at my mother.

Óshún did not deserve all of this.

I did not deserve all of this.

"I can't go back." Her soft voice fills my ears and I look into her alluring eyes. Alarm flashes in them, and my heart begins to constrict in its encasement.

"What do you mean by that?" Anteros asks her. I just squeeze her hands even tighter, fearing the worst but hoping for the best.

What else did mother do to my wife!

"I think the concoction I consumed, cursed me," she whispers, "for some reason, I keep dying repeatedly but each time it happens I don't stay dead." I turn questioning eyes to Anteros and he does the same.

"The repeated death is due to the slime you consumed, my love," I tell her.

"And you can't stay in the underworld for too long. You are a goddess, that's why you come back." Anteros chirps in for me.

"That's the problem!" She exclaims, the confusion in her voice resurfacing, "when I die, I don't find myself in the underworld." She takes a deep breathe and returns her attention to me, "I find myself in our house. Our corridor," she tells me, her eyes begging to be believed.

"I believe you my love," I whisper reassuringly to her, pulling her closer to my aching heart.

Mother what have you done?

"Cupid, what she consumed was no ordinary Anubis' Slime," Anteros' voice rings in my head, confirming my fears. Hømi-hôku.

Óshún consumed Hømi-hôku!

This kind of slime, Hades makes it specially for rogue souls. The souls that refuse to atone for their sins in the underworld. He gives the slime to them and returns them to earth.

The slime takes away their memories, their identities and everything that makes living convenient. If such a soul dies, they get stuck in their heads and become brain dead till eternity. And Anubis —Hades loyal servant— makes sure they die. Always.

"Do you have any memory lost?" Anteros asks her. The urgency in his voice puts me on edge but I stay calm for her sake.

"Right now. . .No," she says, pulling slightly away from me, so she can respond to my brother's question, "I remember everything now."

"How about before?" He probes further.

"Before. . . I couldn't even remember my own name and. . .each time I died and returned, no one seem to know me anymore."

Of course Hømi-hôku will do that to her!

"Hopefully, you are over all of that now," Anteros tells her, but I hear the uncertainty in his voice.

"Will, the coin take her home?" I ask him, pulling her closer. I fear a little more distance will plunge us right back to the torment of separation once again.

"The coin was mastered by Zeus himself. It will over ride Hades' power," he says, shifting his eyes to the door, "I must go prepare for our departure. Hold on to her, Cupid." He slightly bows towards Óshún, winks at me and exits the room.

Óshún relaxes in my arms and I do the same, hoping deep in my heart that Anteros is right and the coin does take us home. We have both being through so much already.

The door to my hotel room flies open and her friends rush inside. "Shaftey! So you are leaving me abi?" Uche screams, pulling her out of my arms and into his.

The young man can not help but be irritable.

Sandra makes an apologetic face at me and I bow my head to acknowledge her action.

I do not loathe the male human anymore —not as much as before-— still, I can not breathe the same air he does.

"I should give you three a moment," I say. But as I make to stand, Óshún pulls unto me.

"Please stay," she softly whispers into my ears, the air the sound produces sending electric current into my core changing my reasoning altogether. Uche isn't as bad as Hades, I'll stay.

"Anteros explained everything to us. I am so happy for you," Sandra says, her face full of smiles.

Anteros told them some of the truth. Of course, he did not mention that we were greater beings compared to them. But he tried his best to explain the situation, adding that Óshún had amnesia and we had to take her home.

"I sha and talk am; Sewa didn't sound like your name," Uche chirps in, "that Óshún sef dey somehow for my mouth, so I will still call you Shaftey!" He announces happily. Sandra hits his head and the three of them laugh heartily. Okay, maybe he isn't so irritating.

"Sandra, reason the name na, Óshún," Uche blurts in between laughs.

To me Óshún is not just a name, it is a destination.

A place for me to lay bare my heart.

A moment in time.

A time that can only be measured by my beating heart.

"It sounds like the name of that Yoruba goddess of wealth and beauty," Sandra responds dreamily.

The three of them exchange funny looks and recommence their happy laugh.

Óshún looks back at me and I only smile, as we both know the real meaning to what Sandra just said.

Her name did not just sound like the Yoruba goddess of wealth and beauty they thought was a myth, it was her true identity.

My Óshún is the Yoruba goddess of wealth, beauty, healing and love.

My Óshún. My wife.

"I am going to miss you," Sandra says, after their laughter dies down.

"I'll miss you more than you can actually imagine it," Óshún says, her brown eyes glinting with a mixture of sadness and happiness.

She leaves my side and pulls Sandra into a tight hug. Uche joins in on the hug pulling the both of them into his long lean arms. "Promise to visit us once in a while," Uche says and my brows raise in surprise at hearing him express himself in proper English for the first time.

Maybe if we met under different circumstances, I might have liked him. More.

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"That took long enough!" Anteros mutters, his body materialising in my hotel room as soon as the door closes after Sandra and Uche.

Shaking my head disapprovingly at his attics, I hold tightly unto Óshún hand, "ready?" I ask her.

Despite being sad just a minute ago as she watched her new friends leave, her face carry the brightest of smile as she looks into my eyes and whispers, "ready."

Her smile. The same smile she had the day I married her in front of the entire population of Olympus. The day she became my goddess.

Sweet and beautiful, my beloved is.

She is my Óshún. My goddess of the African origin.

The one I dream of when the sun shines.

The one whose smile dominates and conquers my very soul, when it's too dark for mere humans to see.

I can tell she is anxious and scared at what might await us on the other side, but she stands bravely by my side, giving the world the soothing gift of her smile — A smile I thought I'd lost — as the hotel room begins to fade into our room, in Olympus.

The future can be uncertain. But as long as I have her by myself, I can destroy every mountain.

Even if that mountain is my very own mother.

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Finally, Cupid returns home with his wife. Will mother be happy that her plan didn't work?

And what about dear old Hades, remember he is still expecting something from Cupid in exchange for giving them the coin of transportation?

Find out these and more in book two ; ÓSHÚN UNTOLD

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