Prologue: A Chalice Poured Too Soon

Every story has an origin, and mine, like all good tragedies, begins with arrogance. Not my arrogance, that would come later, and usually involved mortals I should have left on read, but the arrogance of Eros himself. Yes, the god of love. The golden boy with the smug smirk and the tiny arrows he insists are more effective than therapy.

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Now, you’d think a god who has been meddling with human affection since the Bronze Age would have learned a thing or two about restraint, or at least consistency. But no. He grew restless. Arrows were too primitive, he said. Desire too fleeting. Mortals were breaking up faster than he could keep up with, and Olympus was getting bored of watching him run around like some winged matchmaker with a questionable sense of humor.

 

So he decided to innovate. (If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of “innovation” from Olympus, you already know how this ends.)

 

He set out to brew the elixir of perfect love. Everlasting devotion. A potion that would bind two hearts so completely that not even Zeus’s wandering eye could pry them apart. The gods all rolled their eyes, of course. Athena muttered something about "control groups" and "peer review," which he ignored. Dionysus offered to spice it up with a splash of wine, which he also ignored. And Hera, ever the cynic, simply asked who was going to babysit all the mortals once they started worshipping each other more than the gods.

 

But Eros was determined. He worked in secret, in a chamber heavy with roses, candlelight, and the kind of poetry so nauseating even Apollo threatened to walk out. He tinkered with devotion, tempered it with desire, and added just enough hope to make it lethal. It was ambitious, it was romantic, and it was, of course, unfinished.

 

And then, in true godly fashion, he lost patience. Instead of testing it or waiting for the formula to settle, he poured it into a vessel. That vessel was me.

 

I was not sculpted from marble, nor woven from light, nor birthed from sea foam like Aphrodite with her perfect cheekbones and Instagram-ready smile. I was a chalice filled too soon. A divine experiment cracked open before it was ready. I was love, raw and unstable, and when the potion spilled over, it remade me.

 

The result? Instead of being blessed to receive love, I was cursed to give it. Endlessly. Recklessly. Wholly. My heart became an inexhaustible fountain, forever pouring, never replenished. The joke, of course, is that mortals adore receiving love, but they’re notoriously bad at returning it. They drink, they drop, they destroy. Always.

 

And Olympus? Oh, Olympus thought it was hilarious.

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The first time my heart broke, the skies shattered into rain, and mortals rejoiced. Crops flourished, rivers swelled, and poets scribbled odes about the “tears of a forgotten goddess.” The second time, a forest bloomed from my sorrow, roots crawling out of stone as if to remind me that even grief is fertile. By the third, the gods had decided they were onto something. My heartbreak was productive. My suffering was useful. And in Olympus, that is the cruelest kind of compliment.

 

So they left me this way. They could have undone it...gods have undone worse, believe me...but why waste a good thing? Why mend what feeds the earth? Every fracture of my heart became someone else’s wisdom. Every abandonment watered the world.

 

I became the apotheosis of love’s paradox: to give without measure, and to be abandoned without end. To ache so loudly that mortals found meaning in the echo.

 

Do you want to know the worst part? They applauded. My fellow immortals patted me on the back as if I’d volunteered for this circus. Hera called me “resilient,” which is god-speak for “pathetic but useful.” Apollo said I was “inspiring,” which coming from him means he plans to plagiarize me in a poem. Even Hades weighed in, muttering that at least I was keeping him in business.

 

And so, Sylenora was born. Not Aphrodite with her seashell mirrors. Not Persephone with her seasonal drama. Not Hera with her sanctimonious thunder. No...I am the goddess of heartbreak. The one who loves too much, too fast, too foolishly. The one whose ruin is the fertilizer for everyone else’s growth. (Yes, I said fertilizer. Don’t look at me like that. Even the gods enjoy low humor.)

 

Now, before you clutch your pearls and call me tragic, let’s establish something important: I am not tragic. I am ridiculous. Ridiculously persistent. Ridiculously hopeful. Ridiculously convinced that one day, someone might actually stay. That there might be a love strong enough to silence Olympus and break the curse.

 

That is why this Archive exists. These pages are not just stories; they are evidence. Records of every ruin, every lesson, every absurd dalliance I couldn’t help but throw myself into. Because one must understand where we started to know the nature of where we are going. And where we are going is simple: either I stumble across the mythical idiot who is immune to the curse of half-love, or I finally perfect the potion Eros abandoned like I abandon my dignity at the first sign of affection.

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Until then, I pour.

 

And the world blooms from my wreckage.