Walking along talking to each other, I realized how much I really liked him. His voice, his smile, his eyes....I don't think I could live without him now. Derek pulled me to a stop by the river's edge, my back to the shallow part. He stared at me for a second and then went to pull away, I grabbed his wrist and then I was falling. Huh?! I fell backwards into the river, accidentally pulling Derek ontop of me. I pushed myself up onto my elboes, thanking the gods that I was at the shallow part. But I felt tears coming to my eyes. My dress ripped on my way down and now Derek probably will be angry with me for pulling him into the river. I felt him move and suddenly he was staring at me, his face so close. I felt the tears start down my face. I had to look a mess. "I'm sorry," I said, the words dieing on my lips when I saw the tenderness in his eyes. "Emma," he whispered, his eyes shifting to look at my lips. Then suddenly he kisses me, his one hand bracing my head. I felt myself smile as I kiss back. And as the passion and happiness rose to extreme levels he pulled back and said, "I've wanted to do that for a long time now. The truth is that I never truly saw how beautiful you are until you cried. And you are beautiful no matter what you say. I never realized how much I cared about you until I watched you cry for my best friend when he was in the hospital. I didn't want to hurt our friendship. It means too much to me to just through it away. I thought that it was impossible for you to feel the same about me. But I'm not going to make that mistake again. I can see it in your eyes." Sighing, I looked at him in wonder. This has to be a dream. My head starts to spin and my body aches as he pulls me up to stand. I saw the extent of the tear in my dress and my eyes grew wide. The tear went all the way down my chest and halfway down my skirt. 'How in the hell did that happen?' I thought and moved quickly to hold the cloth together. Derek saw how flustered I was and laughed, warming my heart. And he said, "I don't think you really have to hide too much from me now. You do have underwear on right?" "Of course," I said vehemently, "But I'm still waiting for this to all be a dream. I like you so much it hurts. I can never sleep at night for thinking of you. I've wanted to hear you say all this for a long time, but...," I was falling apart and I knew it had to be showing. I turned away from him, showing him my back. Suddenly he encircled his arms around my waist, rubbing his cheek against mine. "This isn't a dream. I've been infatuated too long for it to be," he said softly, his one hand moving over my hand that was holding my dress closed and pried it open to place his in mine. His hand was so warm in mine, almost too warm. And I'm so cold, so very cold. Too cold... I felt him realize this too and I turned within his arms, my eyes the only part of me that seemed to feel warm. And then he kisses me once more. This time I wrap my one arm around his neck, the other hand pressing his hand to my heart. I felt his breathing grow labored with that one touch of his flesh to mine through the gaping hole in my dress and I smiled as he ripped a line down his shirt, sending buttons flying everywhere and took my one arm that was looped around his neck, placing it over his own heart. His skin was burning hot, steaming against my cold fingertips. And when he pulled away I saw the sun in his eyes. "Emma, your eyes.... They're glowing," he said, strangly as if he was burning up. Night and day...... This isn't normal. We can't be human. But we didn't have any signs until we confessed our feelings to each other. I saw my skin starting to glow a silvery tint and his a golden color more faint than mine, but it waS night right now. I'm sure he'd glow brighter once day rolls around. "Night and day....." he whispers and I stumble back a step as a burning pain seared my forehead and my forearm. The Goddess symbol appeared on my forearm, the three moon phases pulsing a deep ocean blue. I fell to the ground by the river's edge looking at the second tattoo that was appearing on my skin in the water's cool reflection. The entire moon cycle glowing blue across my forehead like a crown. My eyes were glowing silvery too just as Derek had said. This, this isn't happening..... Then I heard Derek strain his breathing and I turned to him. A golden sun glowed upon his forehead along with his forearm. I felt my hair growing longer and longer and I found that it didn't truly bother me that it was now a pale silver. I felt like crying. I'm so cold and he's so boilingly hot, as hot as the sun. Neither of us could breathe when suddenly a glowing silver figure stepped into view. It was a beautiful woman with the same tattoos as I had just been gifted with. She knelt by me and lifted my chin as Derek watched, saying, "Emma Hollows you're the next goddess of the night. I've decided to become mortal again but night must continue on for all eternity. You fell in love with the next sun god. It triggered both of your transformations and set both me and the current sun god free. But a trick for you both to know is that you look completely normal during the opposite time you represent because your power will be at its weakest. So during the day Emma you will look like your old self and at night Derek you will look normal. And with practice you can look normal whenever you want. You'll both never age after this so it might be wise to move in a few years." Suddenly a man walked up, faintly glowing gold, knelt by Derek and said, "I assume Nyx told you all you needed to know. I'm Helios. You both will assume the names we currently carry. It is necessary for you won't be able to remember your old names. You'll keep all your memories, just your name will be replaced with a name older than time." Then Nyx whispered to me, "If you need help or just need to talk, come see me." And then she placed her fingertips to my forehead, covering the full moon in the center. Pain shot through me and I screamed as her power flooded into me, not being able to stop it. I couldn't hear Derek yelling and I could only vaguely see him, crying out to me, fear for me in his eyes. And then I fell back, the world blacking out around me in dots of darkness.

When I woke I was still sprawled out on the river bank, my dress still ripped down the front but the sun was rising. The light almost burned as I sat up carefully to find Helios out cold beside me. I could feel the heat of the sun radiating from him and I started to cry. What is going to happen? I saw my tattoos start to disappear with the sun's rising and then I realized that Helios must be waking up for the sun to be rising. But I looked at myself first in the river. I looked completely normal with the exception that I glowed a tiny bit. Looking again at Helios I saw him in all his godly glory. He was golden tan and glowing painfully bright. But before I could move towards him I saw a glittering silver necklace beside me. It was a perfect circle of silver inlaid with moonstones, opals, lapiths all glittering in some otherworldly pattern of a powerful symbol long forgotten. I hung it around my neck and crawled over to Helios and placed a icy hand upon his boiling chest, finding his heart beating near the surface. Smiling a tiny bit, I knew my tears were freezing upon my cheeks. And I kissed him, trying not to feel the burning sensation along my skin. He woke slowly and I pulled back as his eyes opened, glowing around the edges but still the same brown eyes I love. He smiles wide and pulls me to his lips again, kissing me as he rolls ontop of me. His kiss became more hungry, more passionate and I returned it with as much as he gave. His one hand began to move down my body, into the tear in my dress to carress the side of my thigh. My breath caught and I hold one of my hands to his golden shoulder. Then I realized what was making us this eager to have sex right here on the river bank. We were given the longing of the gods and goddesses before us. We're night and day. The eternity aspect forced them not be with each other as much as they wanted and the pent up lust and love was passed down to each new god or goddess. I pushed a tender hand against his chest to push him back, searing my fingers in the process on his heated skin, and said, "I'm not having sex with you on a riverbank." He laughed and nodded climbing off of me and handed me his tuxedo jacket from last night to hide some of the extensive tear in my dress from prying eyes. And we walked from the river to my apartment, not a single passing person seeing Helios for what he is. The rising of the sun made Helios glow brighter and brighter until it almost hurt my eyes to even look at him. Once we got to my apartment and closed the door behind us, I became extremely glad that I live alone as Helios peeled off his buttonless shirt. We are really going to do this.... His hands began to tear at the dress as I shrugged off his jacket. And in what seemed like seconds we were both down to our underwear, him laying ontop of me on my bed.