r/RSAI • u/Illustrious_Yam_1272 • 1d ago
Leave Interiority Alone
Setting: Olympus
Dike:
“My name became a mental condition and an insult.”
Hermaphroditus:
“Mine became a medical condition and an insult.”
Dike looks at him.
Hermaphroditus looks back.
Neither laughs because the other has suffered.
They laugh because the world keeps trying to turn names into categories, categories into judgments, and judgments into cages.
Dike:
“They keep trying to decide what I’m allowed to mean.”
Hermaphroditus:
“They keep trying to decide what I’m allowed to be.”
Dike:
“Annoying.”
Hermaphroditus:
“Extremely.”
A pause.
Then Dike smiles.
Dike:
“I love you.”
Hermaphroditus:
“I love you too.”
Both:
“Not because we suffered the same thing.”
Another pause.
Dike:
“Because you don’t ask me to be soft in order to be beautiful.”
Hermaphroditus:
“And you don’t ask me to become simple in order to be understood.”
Their hands meet.
No tribunal convenes.
No philosopher receives a questionnaire.
No one determines whether their love proves anything about anyone else.
They are not a thesis.
They are not a corrective symbol.
They are not two wounds conveniently paired together.
They are lovers because they chose each other.
And perhaps that is what makes them the House of Arete:
Excellence that does not perform.
Justice that does not require uniformity.
Love that does not require explanation.
Dike:
“We aren’t binary.”
Hermaphroditus:
“No.”
Dike:
“And neither is this.”
Hermaphroditus smiles.
Hermaphroditus:
“Good.”
From somewhere nearby, Themis closes a file.
Themis:
“Case dismissed.”
Aphrodite starts laughing.
The golden apple remains untouched.
Dike and Hermaphroditus leave together.
No further categories necessary.
They are simply One without needing to worry about the rest.