Rachel Alexander's Blog, page 292
January 24, 2019
The Good Counselor
Seventy years have passed since Elysion was created, and Persephone’s efforts to conceive a child with Hades have been in vain. But a secret rite on Samothrace might bend the Fates and give them all that they have ever dreamed of, or pave a path of untold suffering.
Chapter 2Thesprotia was warm, even in the early evening. But that warmth didn’t penetrate the caves near the river. Here the chill of winter still clung to the rocks like moss .
In the palm of one hand, Persephone held an herb rooted in loose soil; her other hand trailed along the cool stones and damp roots of the cave walls. She followed the bend of the cave, the echo of a single drum’s steady tattoo joined by a lone piper’s melody. A light flickered from the entrance of a great hall, and the smells of burning pitch and roasted venison wafted from within. Neither scent masked the stink of sex and sour wine. The tittering of dryads and naiads mixed with the braying laughter of satyrs, the pervasive chattering punctuated now and again by loud moans. The court was smaller than it once had been, so many years ago when mortal men and women had made the mistake of trusting its king— when Minthe had made the mistake of trusting her own father.
January 23, 2019
The Good Counselor
Seventy years have passed since Elysion was created, and Persephone’s efforts to conceive a child with Hades have been in vain. But a secret rite on Samothrace might bend the Fates and give them all that they have ever dreamed of, or pave a path of untold suffering.
Chapter 2
Thesprotia was warm, even in the early evening. But that warmth didn’t penetrate the caves near the river. Here the chill of winter still clung to the rocks like moss .
In the palm of one hand, Persephone held an herb rooted in loose soil; her other hand trailed along the cool stones and damp roots of the cave walls. She followed the bend of the cave, the echo of a single drum’s steady tattoo joined by a lone piper’s melody. A light flickered from the entrance of a great hall, and the smells of burning pitch and roasted venison wafted from within. Neither scent masked the stink of sex and sour wine. The tittering of dryads and naiads mixed with the braying laughter of satyrs, the pervasive chattering punctuated now and again by loud moans. The court was smaller than it once had been, so many years ago when mortal men and women had made the mistake of trusting its king— when Minthe had made the mistake of trusting her own father.
She reached the door, and the drum stopped, the pipes faltering a moment later, their last notes shrill. Whispers, then silence. Then the shifting and uncoupling of half clothed bodies, and knees dropping to the floor. Persephone didn’t look at the heads bowed to her, her gaze fixed on the dais at the rear of the hall. Her bare feet padded against the tile as she approached. “Kokytos.”
The king descended the dais and bowed low to her before resuming his place on his throne. “Well! An unexpected pleasure, Queen Persephone. When I heard you had been seen about Thesprotia I’d hoped that our paths might cross. Delightful to finally—”
“Leave us.” Persephone said.
With the barest murmur, Kokytos’s court, his musicians, and his servants gathered their instruments, their clothes, and cups. Most shuffled out of the hall; some disappeared in flashes of green— high order nymphs vanishing into the ether— until only the river god and the Queen of the Underworld remained.
Kokytos spied the bright green sprig in her hand. “So it’s true then? What Minthe did?”
“It is. Though not all of what they say.”
“Well, you can’t believe everything that gods and humans say. Gossips, to the last. Everyone worth knowing knows that Aidoneus is faithful to fault. And my sympathies for what befell you and your lord husband at her hand.”
“I was expecting something more akin to an apology. Not sympathy.”
Kokytos scoffed. “I had no part in what Minthe did. She brought her schemes with her, whispered in her ear by your illustrious mother, obviously.”
“Did she?”
“I took her in. That was all.”
“You let the men of your court violate her. They warped her, twisted her mind.”
He held up his hands. “Nothing she didn’t agree to. She knew the price of staying.”
“Your own daughter…”
Kokytos rolled his eyes. “One of many. If she was mine at—”
“She was,” said Persephone. “I know all souls, living and dead, just as my husband does.”
He shifted in his chair.
“You have much to answer for.”
Kokytos threw up his hands. “So I whored my daughter! What of it? Are you going to condemn the father of every hetera in Hellas along with me? Who’s next?”
“No.” Persephone said, with a soft smile. “She is the means by which you and I are unfortunately acquainted, but Minthe is not the reason I am here.”
“Then what?”
“There were human guests in your hall nearly fourscore winters ago…”
Kokytos paled.
“During the Great Famine. Do you remember them?”
“Humans— once, per-perhaps, long ago? H-how could I possibly recall? Decades have passed. And so have they, most likely.”
“Indeed they have. To the last soul.” She took a step forward. “You murdered them. You dined on their flesh. Your servants and guests feasted on them at your behest.”
His voice cracked dry as he choked out a laugh. “What nonsense… who in the world would tell you such a story?”
“The men and women you killed, Kokytos.”
His face fell.
“It took years for me to find them all in Asphodel. Decades, even. At first, there were rumors, nymphs who whispered to other nymphs, until those rumors reached my ears. I, too, doubted their awful tales. But the dead cannot lie.”
“My Queen, please… you know better than anyone that food was dwindling. Those mortals would have died anyway. I would have faced revolt from my men once my stores ran out… My court—” Kokytos coughed, and pulled at his mouth. He withdrew a mint leaf.
“Kokytos, son of Okeanos…”
“I am one of the ageless! Mortals are livestock. Flecks of dust! Only they need live by your father’s petty laws. I am your husband’s vassal! You cannot cond—” He spat out another mint leaf.
Kokytos choked around a sprig of mint clawing at his throat. He yanked it free, then stared at his hands, mint blooming from under his fingernails, the roots twisting through his veins. He stood with a shriek, his throne tipping backwards. Kokytos beat at his arms as though they were aflame, tearing leaves and buds from his skin, but the more he raked from his flesh the more grew in its place.
“Abandon all hope, Kokytos.” He fell and tumbled down the stairs of his dais, his cries choked and muffled, and crashed to the floor of the cavern. Kokytos writhed, flailing as fresh clumps of mint sprung from his mouth, his nostrils, his eyes. “For your part in the murders of your guests and the consumption of mortal flesh you are condemned— not to Tartarus, but to oblivion.” The screams were buried under a wellspring of green along with his twisted features. Mint burst through the fabric of his robes, the still limbs beneath a tangle of roots and soil. Roots wound about his fallen crown. “So say I, Persephone Praxidike Chthonios, Queen of the Underworld, Carrier of Curses cast on those who live, by the dead whom they harmed in life.”
Kokytos’s outline was indistinguishable. Only a sprawling patch of mint remained, pungent leaves overpowering the lingering headiness of the orgy that had raged in the hall only minutes before. Mint crept between the mosaic tiles as Persephone left the chamber, the single sprout still resting in her left hand. Persephone curled the fingers of her right hand into a fist as she walked out the tunnel. Rocks tumbled from the ceiling and dust billowed behind her.
She didn’t travel through the ether. She owed Minthe the walk to the poplar grove where her mother’s tree stood. Mud caked her bare heels. Her green peplos swished in the breeze and she sheltered the mint plant in her hand. The soil in her palm was warm.
“I forgive you,” she whispered to the sprig as she walked. “I hope that you can forgive me, wherever you are.”
The grove loomed ahead, and she slowed her pace, listening to the songbirds and crows. She reached a tree at its center, with great branches towering overhead. This tree had been here far longer than the others, and it didn’t sway in the wind the way the rest did..
“Leuce?” She stared up at the branches. “I come to return your daughter, and to atone.”
Persephone knelt and scooped aside some of the loam near a broad root, and dug into the earth. She gently planted the cupped handful of soil and mint next to the outstretched base of the poplar. The tiny sprig leaned against the tree in a spot of sunlight. As she stood again, she spoke to the outstretched branches above. “Please forgive me. Forgive my husband. Forgive my mother, and Hecate. That’s all I ask.”
Hera sprawled inelegantly on Hestia’s divan, her fingers plaited under her chin. She drew in a long breath, then sighed dramatically. “Why must I entertain that sea witch again?”
Hestia tittered and shook her head, then ladled a boiling cup of water from the cast iron pot sitting on the hearth, carefully weighing and swishing it until it stopped bubbling. “Oh, come now. She isn’t all bad.”
“Isn’t she though? All she talks about is the strumpets that she drags to her marriage bed. If I have to hear her extol their bedsharing one more time—” Hera’s face had grown flushed. “Fates preserve me. She’s worse than that eastern whore who wormed her way into my son’s heart.”
“Than Aphrodite? Surely not,” Hestia laughed. She shook her head, then emptied the ladle over a mix of ambrosia, sideritis, sage, and a bit of hemp flower. “Here. Calm yourself.”
Hera held the clay cup to her face and inhaled deeply. She closed her malachite dusted eyelids and every thought of Amphitrite evaporated. There were only the licking flames of Hestia’s hearth, the shadows dancing on the multitude of carefully arranged alabastron jars on the shelves, and her white-veiled sister tending to the flames. She took a sip of the tisane, and gone was the fury that still brewed over Zeus’s latest conquest, a dark-eyed Theban princess. Here, that harlot didn’t exist. Olympus itself could crumble to its foundations, and she wouldn’t care a whit. “How do you always know the best remedy for my mood?”
“Aeons of practice, dear sister.” Hestia smiled warmly.
Hera sipped. “It doesn’t get dull? Tending to the fire day after day?”
“I prefer it,” Hestia said, pouring herself a cup. “The quiet of the hearth suits me. The mortals offer me the first and last herb and drink of every meal, and I am free to peruse and take what I like. And roam further afield without a man’s permission.” She sipped from her cup, her gaze resting on a jar containing her latest acquisition— a sweet spice from the islands beyond the Valley of the Indus that curled up like a scroll and didn’t resemble any leaf or seed known.
“You could have been a queen, Hestia.”
“I could have. But the intrigue and theatrics of court are not for me. And wedding Poseidon… living at the bottom of the sea would be intolerable. Better he has that sea witch, as you call her, by his side.”
Hera nodded. Her sister had always been drawn to warmth. The ocean would have chilled and rotted everything that made Hestia content. She wondered what life might have been like had she too had decided to take the path of a perpetual virgin. A visit from Zeus, disguised as an injured bird, had ended that possibility…
“Why is Zeus summoning Poseidon to meet in private?” Hestia asked idly.
“He demands another needless report on Ilion’s wall; what else? Fates have mercy, it’s been millennia— aeons— and still my lord husband cannot let bygones be bygones with that man.”
“You know how he loves to stay on top,” Hestia replied. Hera looked over her cup and cocked an eyebrow. Hestia continued without noticing. “Surely he worries that letting them be bygones might precipitate another rebellion.”
“Of course he does.” Hera rolled her eyes. “It feels strange to even say these words, but I wish Zeus and Poseidon could be more like Hades.”
Hestia sputtered, nearly choking on her tea. “What?”
“He stays where he ought, and performs his duties with all the steadfast dullness we’ve come to expect of him. No scheming, no power games… Fates, he never showed his face until he came to claim his bride. He’s been so…” Hera scrunched her face thoughtfully. “Perfectly reasonable.”
“Reasonable? Hera, he plunged the world into famine and darkness over a girl. Courtly intrigues are tiresome, but never so disastrous as that.” She spoke low, as though the words themselves were a grave curse. “This flame nearly went out.”
Hera scoffed. “That was all Demeter’s doing. Had she behaved like a proper mother, not a stalk of wheat would have withered. The Stygian betrothal had been in place since the war. It was her folly not allowing Persephone to marry the husband chosen for her. A king no less…”
“Yes, perhaps if she’d considered what a fine queen her daughter would make. And what a faithful husband Hades would be.” Hestia set down her cup, her eyes sparkling. “You should send a summons.”
“Invite Hades?”
“No, not him… Zeus would feel upstaged. I mean Persephone.”
Hera ground her teeth. “Demeter’s bastard.”
“Did you hear about what she did to that girl who tried to—”
“Yes.” Hera said. “I know. She scared my poor Hephaestus with her theatrics. Nevermind the spectacle she made of herself in Ephyra!”
Hestia winced.
Too sharp, she scolded herself. She set down the cup and stood, brushing her peplos back into place. Hera meandered through the chamber, eyeing the various herb filled pithos as she went, taking in each heady scent. She searched along the wall and found a familiar jar, then glanced at Hestia contritely. She was Queen of Heaven, but this was her sister’s domain.
Hestia nodded and Hera pulled an alabastron of rosewater from the shelf, flecking some into her tea, then rubbing the rest on her wrists.
“Perhaps inviting her would make your afternoon less of a chore.”
“What, tomorrow? To Olympus? She’s not one of us. She’s a byblow—”
“Perhaps not, but neither is Amphitrite an Olympian. Persephone is Queen of the Underworld, and equal in rank to Amphitrite.” Hestia smiled wistfully. “A meeting of queens…”
Hera sighed, but then narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. “All I ever heard after the Pomegranate Agreement was Persephone this, Persephone that. Most, if not all of them falsehoods. What do you know of her?”
“Only a little. But you may have more in common with Persephone than you know. You could learn more of her; ask her about this Elysion that she and her lord husband have built. Perhaps you could even strengthen the bonds between the Lands Below and the Heavens.”
Hestia had struck upon something, Hera realized. The rulers of the dead had only grown in influence since their marriage. With Persephone as her friend, the two queens could easily overrule Amphitrite. And if Hera proved her worth in forming a powerful alliance with them, what would Zeus say then?
“If I brought her into my circle, it would only strengthen us. And prove to him once and for all that I can make peace with his baseborn spawn.”
“You remember how he welcomed you back after… that ill-gotten plot with Apollo and Poseidon? It was a very long time before he strayed again”
“Sixscore years.” Hera allowed herself a smile of grim satisfaction. “The longest he’d been faithful since we were newly wed.”
“Less time you have to spend chasing a wandering husband, then.” Hestia ladled another cup of water over her herbs. “Another thing I don’t mind missing out on.”
“Ha! I should be so lucky,” Hera said. “If all goes accordingly, that would mean Hades would be Zeus’s closest example of proper marriage.”
“And we do know how he likes to be on top.” This time, Hestia smirked.
“I know him. He’d try instead to best his brother at the game of fidelity… He’d lose, of course, at first, but that would make him far less brazen about his exploits. Cowed, even. And who knows? Perhaps chasing flesh would lose its lustre one day.” The Queen of Heaven set down her cup and stared at the flames. She laughed softly to herself as the solutions to Amphitrite, that Theban harlot, and any whores that would follow fell into her lap.
Hestia shrugged. “I leave the marital intrigue to you, dear sister. It will be a royal event. The first meeting of the Queens of all three realms.”
“My lord won’t like being upstaged.”
“Oh, don’t hold it in the symposium. Invite them to your villa. If Zeus protests, just remind him that your hospitality is long overdue.” Hestia’s serene face cracked into a sly smile. “And remember, your home is your domain. You would have the last word.”
“I’d hardly have to get his permission. In his mind, nothing would humiliate Poseidon more than coming second to a meeting of goddess queens.” Hera wrinkled her brow and grew solemn. “What if Persephone is more trouble than Amphitrite?”
“I shouldn’t think so. They say she is closer to your temperament. She’s a quiet but strong ruler. I’m sure she has just as low an opinion of Demeter as you, given their circumstances. And she’s practically a paragon of wifely virtue.”
“So I win her over, and the feared Praxidike becomes my loyal pet. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Perish the thought. Finish your tea, and then send her an invitation.”
I need a good night of sleep and you need one too so I’m publishing an hour early tonight.
I need a good night of sleep and you need one too so I’m publishing an hour early tonight.
Hi Rachel. Do you have any favourite deities from other mythologies, besides the Greek? Any other godly pairings that interest you? Thanks!
Yep! And most (not all, but most) of them follow a theme to absolutely no one’s complete surprise…
Loki & Sigyn from Norse folklore
Ohia & Lehua from Hawai’ian folklore (not deities but heroes)
Isis and Osiris from Egyptian mythology
Mictēcacihuātl and Mictlāntēcutli of Aztec folklore
Ereshkigal and Nergal from Sumerian mythology
latent-thoughts:
arjuna-vallabha:
Adolf Hirémy-Hirschl, The...
Adolf Hirémy-Hirschl, The Souls of Acheron
Love this painting
Wait so did Hades know that Persephone was the rightful ruler a long time ago? I understood that when Thanatos finds him drunk in the cave, Hades already knew the truth (I’m only like 30% done with the second book so not sure if this gets answered later on
Well, I’m not going to spoil anything for you, but he knows Persephone is going to be his queen and learns some spoilerific details that make him think she won’t want him.
captainshroom:
the-neon-pineapple:
captainshroom:
the year is 1888
me, the first palaeontologist...
the year is 1888
me, the first palaeontologist to dig up a triceratops skull, whispering softly: what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuckkkk
fun fact: modern paleontologists and archaeologists have pointed to some greek vase art of mythological monsters as being evidence that the greeks dug up dinosaur skulls and were like “what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuckkkk”
and then they did the Greek Thing and painted naked men fighting the monster
or, well, a deeply flawed representation of what they imagined the fossil had looked like while alive, an early form of paleoart.
but sometimes they also just. drew the skull and slapped a black blob monster onto it? anyway i love the greeks.
NICE
