victory is an aphrodisiac whose taste lingers on his tongue for far too long. he feels light and heaven-sent, glory-crowned even with just one victory. his mind bids him caution, lest an overeager pride come before the fall; but what else can he feel aside from elation at this, his first taste of satisfaction in what seemed like too long a time ? there will be time for training and for making preparations. for now, he is looking for a way to celebrate: taverns can be ever so crude and common, the cottina too base, but art of a higher sort might prove his soul’s solace—and what better way to cap off a victory than watching men play pretend for a little bit of time ?
it is alone that he sojourns into the amphitheatre, packed as it is by people of varying sorts and ages. in the crowd, he almost dissolves, anonymous and indistinct. perhaps he should be thankful there were no laurel leaves for him to be crowned, because he’s thinking he quite likes the idea of being unrecognised, of hiding in plain sight.
he turns his head to the man besides him—and what a curious thing, because he finds himself once more meeting that man he met in the agora. how strange to meet the same man twice over in a city so densely populated by the world twice over ! coincidences like this rarely happen, and theseus isn’t one to back away from such twists of fate. ❛ oh, hello again, ❜ he says, voice pleasant. ❛ i didn’t know you were such a patron of the arts—or else i might have asked you for a drink after we met, if only because it seems we might have much in common. ❜
Hades denied the other of a greeting of his own. “I am a patron of many things,” he said, darkly, “but the arts is not one of them. My presence here is merely incidental to my wife’s.” Perhaps Hades had enjoyed it more than he was willing to admit, the little simulation of the world that these men made, entire bodies modulating a performance of some sharp-tongued script whose apparent fame Hades was unaware of. Still, what did he care to reveal it to — not even a stranger, but one who he so despised? “I doubt that we have very much in common.” Though the idea of a drink amused him; he would not be intoxicated, but it would offer him a chance to see the other in a disgraced state, and retrieve from this the best way to bring suffering to the wretched mortal. “Though I would not turn down the offer of a drink.”
and while you are here, you shall rule all that moves and shall have the greatest rights among the deathless gods: those who defraud you and do not appease your power with offerings, reverently performing rites and paying fit gifts, shall be punished forevermore.
( hesiod, the homeric hymns, and homerica by hesiod; homer; evelyn-white, hugh g., d. 1924 )
the following prompts were taken from the novel deathless by catherynne m. valente, an american novelist & poet. the novel was loosely based on the tale of koschei the deathless, incorporating other elements of russian mythology, & setting it against the backdrop of the russian revolution. feel free to change the pronouns / prompts as you see fit, but be warned – below the cut, it’s quite long !
❛ the service of your body is not yours to give as you please. ❜
❛ you probably won’t survive. ❜
❛ go. run. don’t look behind you. ❜
❛ i have come for the girl in the window. ❜
❛ i will never be without information. ❜
❛ i will see him with his skin off before i fall in love. ❜
❛ if the world is divided into seeing & not seeing, i will always choose to see. ❜
❛ secrets are jealous things, permitting no fraternization. ❜
❛ no, it’s not like that, when magic comes. ❜
❛ magic does that. it wastes you away. once it grips you by the ear, the world gets quieter & quieter until you can hardly hear it at all. ❜
❛ the sight of it bruised my heart so that i cannot think about anything else. ❜
❛ i’ll be so quiet, i’ll never talk again. ❜
❛ keep me & obey me, for i am your husband, & i can destroy you. ❜
❛ i shall be clever, & i shall not let him go. ❜
❛ it is a new world, & we do not wish to be left behind. ❜
She has been sitting at the window for quite some time now, (although what use is the concept of time if one has all of it in the world to spare and then some,) eyes trained on a distant horizon. There are things plaguing at her mind, far too many of them, and Persephone finds herself struggling to remember the last time she has felt this conflicted.
❛ This… ❜ her eyes fall onto the bouquet, the endless colours, the different shapes, each and every one a pinnacle of beauty in its own right, the sort that no one, mortal or immortal could hope to emulate — and although there is no sort of unity to the colours or shapes or much of anything, it does not reek of chaos. Silver eyes brighten — she is not a fickle creature to please, simple delights like a beautiful flower are enough, but then again, she is spring and blooming, and so is this not the best way to please her ? At any rate, it is a harmonic sort of discordance, and yet, was that not true for the both of them as well ? Harmony between two beings who, at first glance, matched in no manner whatsoever. ❛ Thank you, you should not have, ❜ a soft smile creeps onto her face, ❛ Although Tyndareus is lacking in taste in terms of his gardens, you need not go to such lengths to atone for it. ❜
“Your displeasure is my displeasure,” said Hades, evenly, as though stating pure fact. He did not smile, but the other’s smile brought a contentment unlike any other — perhaps he was yet victorious in his quest. He offered his hand to the other, palm upward, and gently took hers. She bursted with life and he with death, and to touch her felt like chaos and balance all at once. to touch her felt like the heavens falling and the underworld rising, each and every time. A kiss, quietly, he pressed to her knuckles. “There is little to do in this realm. I itch to return to the palace. I may only hope that Kerberos is enjoying the company of the daughters of the infernal rivers.” He let his gaze linger upon the other for one more moment, and how endlessly he was surprised by her beauty. As it must, though, his gaze moved way, off to the spacious window of Tyndareus’s walls and the world beyond. “I saw the wretched Theseus in the agora,” he told to her. “What feel you, my queen, that he should roam free?”
❛ Shit, I’d say so ! You look like something ten different cats dragged in. ❜ Their breath leaves in a gust of laughter, lifeless, but light, and it settles on them like a chlamys. It is proof of status, of magnanimity, a convoluted way to spit on the past.
But the past’s features are imprinted, are they not, on the very retina of immortals — it is what defines being eternal, to have it skulking nearby, a suspended celestial body.
Their history says this: I loved Persephone like my own sister, the twin that never was, the twin Hera denied us. I loved her in blame and wrongness and superiority, in deeming myself above her even as I yearned for the sunlight she casts, the warmth that spread from her like veins. Their history says: you came and took it, silent as mummery, no questions asked — and you did it because you were cold. Oh, I know coldness, bones growing gnarled & frigid in the long winter of your fate. I know loneliness, I sit and dine with it, I open my mouth for it. I can bear it better than you; I have borne it all my life.
But there is no foothold for the words to cling to. So this is all the Huntress has: huffed laughter, acid curtailing his brooding solitude, his aura of deep-sown respect. ❛ What cause d’you have for coming here at all, then — surely there isn’t a shortage of empty, forlorn crags in the Underworld, little nooks you can hide in ? ❜
Hades did not scowl, but the slightest shift of expression in his features might have been something close to it. “The business of beauty is beyond my reach,” he murmured, his gaze sinking once more unto the impenetrable sea. He considered the idea of drawing his invisible crown from the depths of his palace, for the next time he might escape from the duty of conversation. “Perhaps I wish to see this realm before it is enveloped by the flames of destruction. Don’t mistake me, I would rather be in my forlorn crags. But here we must be, Huntress, and here we are.” His gaze fell to the basket of disparate flowers he had bought from the marketplace for the goddess that was his wife, and then soon back to Artemis. “Persephone quite likes this realm. I find it difficult to see the appeal, but nonetheless it would not do to see it destroyed.”
❛ oh, it matters a great deal, i think, ❜ he says, voice sounding ever so sure. his mother taught him thrift, even as a prince—albeit a prince of some middling kingdom whose dominium was composed merely of weather-worn rocks and empty greenery—and it is a value he finds himself relying on now as but a mere exile. ❛ blacksmiths and jewellers always have their way of discerning, ❜ he adds, before he examines the bracelet even closer, almost as if by proximity he can figure out the flaws and the tells that would make its origins clear.
alas, he was no jeweller, and there is nothing a closer look gives him, save his own vague and blurry reflection in the inky depths of the opals. he looks up, the action itself almost a concession of defeat. he surveys the other’s features and is only met with unfamiliarty. the man he speaks to is nobody known to him, not even in rumours and gossip, the type that usually clothed themselves around heroes and other personages of note. ❛ dare i ask if you know something about precious stones, my good man, ❜ he says, ❛ or should i give this up for a lost cause ? ❜
“It is not usually to blacksmiths and jewellers who one exhibits their jewellery,” Hades said, a never-ending sea of evenness to his tone. With his hands clasped behind his back, he was silent for a moment as he decided whether to tell him, “It’s an imitation, well-made as it may be. Fool’s gold.” Disinterestedly, he turned his head away. And then he picked up another — similarly designed, but of doubtless veracity. “This one is real. Twins of different origins, one merely deceit of another. The proprietor is likely unaware of its truth.” With a single touch, he imbued death upon the intricate piece of metal. It would not kill him, no, but it would bring him closer to the grasp of the Invisible One, and one day he might find himself haunted by the hails of every sorrowed soul in the Underworld, but for now, it would bring him ill luck.
achilles was drawn to the sea like the moths who drew close to the campfires of the myrmidons during these long, ale-soaked nights at king tyndareus’ court. he was, subconsciously, looking for his mother, though he wasn’t sure he actually wanted to speak to her. it was always the same these days, what bleed from her blue-tinged lips. he loved her, of course he did, that was why he scoured every shore for her like a child looking for shells, but the man he was and the son she wanted were not necessarily one and the same anymore.
he wandered the shore a little aimlessly, annoyed that he had to dodge so many others now that sparta was bursting with visitors. when one of the other inhabitants on the beach spoke to him, he stopped dead in his tracks. was this a god, the survival part of his subconscious screamed, tread carefully. “apologies. though if you are looking for solace, i would not recommend this place much longer. men descend onto it like flies after noon - to train.”
Hades was silent for many moments, discerning the other’s features. There were few mortal souls that trespassed the Underworld, and he knew of this one — the babe that had been bathed in the Styx. “I see,” finally, slipped from his lips. “I shall only be a few moments longer.” He faced the sea again, his feet slipping onto the mortal-made sandals. What a shame that it would leave his grasp soon enough; but he cared little to cause ripples in mortal matters, and so dutifully he would leave. “Is it for that purpose that you have come here? Or are you a wanderer alike?” Unfamiliar with the terrain, perhaps he could attain some valuable information from the young Achilles. “Where should one go, if it is solace that he yearns for?”
The trip to the agora had been a painful one. He was not one for public places, not one for crowds, and not one for crowds surrounded by displays of freshly harvested bounties of the Earth and the Seas. And yet he had wandered with a singular purpose, and he had come out feeling short of victory. When he returned to the Pandokos Xenostatis, he trod forward without care for the glances or greetings of others, his expression impartial and disinterested, softened (slightly) only when he found the object of his search.
Silently, without mind to the servants that surrounded them, he handed over the flowers. Almost as an afterthought, he added an explanation: “You said the garden was lacking.” He almost looked irritated as his gaze wandered over the diverse, disparate bouquet — dozens of differently colored and shaped flowers, the freshest and sweetest-smelling of their kin (according to their sellers, though of course they would all say this), that he did his best to remain untouched with death — irritated because he did not feel that he had found enough. His priority had not been a harmonious display, but getting as many as he could; he could not tell the difference, for the death of him, for all the flowers reeked of life which he did not know. (All he knew was that the goddess seemed to adore each and every one she came across, and that she had been complaining about the lack of some in the rooftop gardens.) “If these do not suffice, then allow me to return to the agora in the morrow.”
it has been said: to everything there is a time and place; and yet the spartan court, lavish and decadent, seems to be stuck in a moment frozen in time, crystallised in endless revelry and debauchery, acting as if this is how it has always been and always will be. coin flows easily from drunk, common soldiers looking for simple pleasures; dockhands from the ships that princes have set sail out on have flooded the streets. everything turns into a carousel of loud sounds that are composed of bargaining over prices, gossips whispering of the spartan prize, and reverent rumours about the presence of the gods most high come down to earth. there’s various smells, both pungent and fragrant, that pervade the air: the smell of fish and of pigs, the coppery tinge of blood from the butcher’s shop mixing with the fragrance of exotic spices, all sorts of odours from cardamom and agarwood, oysters and musk, the sea-salted air and the undertones of brined meats all mixing together into a cacophony of aromas that seem half-monstrous in its totality.
it is disgusting; it is glorious; it is life itself—and for that, theseus finds himself seduced by the endless call of it, as he had been, as he always does, and as he always will be.
there’s the promise of discovery hidden in the stalls, an infinitude of cultures and nations just waiting to be found underneath peddled wares of dubious origins and forged materiel made only as recent as yesterday. amidst the mountains of imitated glory, there’s the odd lure here and there: that moment where hand brushes against something true, something divine. theseus’ fingers curl around a circular device—and he pulls out a golden bracelet, decorated with both opals and emeralds, almost a thing of beauty in its own right. unable to resist, he turns to one next to him, as if boasting about his find.
❛ what do you think ? ❜ he asks. ❛ is it a fortunate discovery or yet another dupe ? ❜
Piles upon piles of fresh fruits and vegetables and cheeses and freshly slaughtered meat upon stalls; with one burst of power he could reduce it all to rotten flesh. Not that he would disrupt the order of this world-that-was-not-his, not without reason. Still,it was a curiosity to wander through such delicate life, and even more through the mortals walking shoulder-to-shoulder with their day’s purchase with baskets in their hands. How fragile it was, life. Once escaped from the fresh bounties of the Earth onto safer audience — little lifeless trinkets and wonders, he took an easy breath, that was, until, a familiar figure came into sight. Familiarity laced with blood-boiling rage, a memory not so long past seeping through to divine mind. One act, indeed, could decimate the entire agora along with this detested figure, but the rage tided over easily and just as quickly as it had appeared. He approached, wondering if the other would recognize his once-tormentor in this mortal vessel, and before he could say anything a question was posited to him.
Hades inspected the object with a single gaze. A well-made counterfeit, a simulation of its intention so true that it could easily pass as such to mortal eyes. "If there is no way to discern,” said the god, the voice of his vessel quiet and even. “What does it matter?”
Hades emanated death. Even in this vessel, he had to hold in it, else everything around him had the tendency to wither and crumble to dust. A quiet, abandoned portion of the shore a good distance away from most life provided good release: there were no casualties to think of. A bit of seaweed here and there, certainly no fish this close to the shore, though a few sand crabs had suffered too early their deaths. His sandals had been abandoned to feel the sand against his vessel’s soles, and he admired the sight before him of his brother’s realm. Perhaps he was growing too comfortable, however, and upon the slightest sense of life he reeled his powers back in, and with a sigh, felt once again enclosed by life on all sides.
The figure seemed to wander to the God with a purpose, or perhaps they simply walked as such. Still, when he felt the figure approach close, he turned his head and examined the wandering mortal (or were they simply hidden under the skin of a mortal?). Slowly, an eyebrow raised, he said to his unwelcome interlocutor: “I would prefer to be alone.”
— ✹ HEED THE MURMUR ! The Halls of Sparta welcome ( HADES ) the ( GOD ) of ( THE UNDERWORLD ). The bards tell us they are ( IMMORTAL ) and strike a likeness to ( DAVID GANDY ). Their deeds precede them in the world — extoled to be ( stoic, clear-minded, sharp ) yet ( uncaring, detached, reclusive ) in their worst hour. When they enter a quiet room, shadows of ( a cold so sharp it cuts through flesh through to bone ; aged, immovable stone, unweathered through the millennia ; a darkness unlike any other, a vacuum that swallows all light, all life ) spring forward. Their opinion about the marriage contest is a ( neutral ) one. Their purpose at the Spartan court falls in line with ( the desire to spectate human and godly squabbles ).
Hellooooo ✨ I’m Aubrey, I’m 21 (turning 22 in a few days), I’m from the Philippines, I’m addicted to Stardew Valley, and I’m currently studying law! (Which is, not gonna lie, what most of my whining is going to be about 😴). Hit me up on Discord (emperor constant teen#3635) for plots! 💕
PLOT POINTS
A mere spectator in this contest; a mere spectator to the events that threaten to unfold. What little he cares for mortal squabbles, and even for godly ones. (The latter has, unfortunately, the tendency to demand for his participation, but for as long as he can he will resist.) He has no favor or disfavor for either side, and for almost all respects he will choose inaction. It is not until he himself, or his personal interests are threatened, that Hades will rise towards action. And there is one, of course, one interest that could sway him, one so crucial — his dearest Persephone. If she were threatened, then Hades would himself unbalance order and chaos, would raze the World and bring upon it the Underworld.
Hades will resist for as long as he can, but godly blood threatens to flood, and it will bleed past the world of which he cares so little to threaten the harmony of all that exists. There is a balance, a natural order, and Hades will work towards the ends that maintain such order. Hera is the natural order; the natural ruler, which, like he, remains unseen. He will stand beside the goddess and bring the force of the Underworld behind him — and there will be no one to show mercy to those who dare tread against him.
Vengeance holds no place in the Underworld, nor is Hades a vengeful God, and yet one mortal’s acts have stirred up fiery anger from the pits of his being: the demigod, Theseus, and his attempt to kidnap the goddess Persephone — an insult to his sovereign, an insult to the very nature of godliness. Whilst the mortal Pirithous continues to serve his eternal punishment, the demigod had escaped from the Underworld and the rightful punishment which had been meted to him. Whilst his saviour lies beyond Hades’s reach, granted, of all things, immortality, there are ways to bring suffering to the mortal realm. There is a price to pay by the two demigods, and Hades has come to collect these debts.
If they are a God, where do their true loyalties lie and for what reason ?
This world is not his. He does not detest it, but his presence within it is abhorrent to all that is natural, abhorrent to the very order of the cosmos. This world is not his, and yet he steps upon it in the form of a mortal and lets godly gaze set sight upon the petty squabbles of the mortals (and, lest it be forgotten, of the gods). He sees the bright light of the sun and its reflection upon the seas that disappear to the horizon, the rich foliage of the forest and the sweet fruits and delicate flowers that blossom upon their branches, the creatures that roam upon dry land, their hearts beating in their chests, and mortals, mortals and their tools that separate them from every other living creature; the scent of war abounds thick in the air, a static so scattered, so enthused to be inflamed, there need only be the final strike of the flint. Nothing here is his, nothing here belongs to him — nothing here begets his loyalty.
The tides shift, seasons pass, the world crumbles into dust and entire peoples are slaughtered and born and each is nothing more than a drop in the ocean. Every battle, every war — every shift in allegiance, every act of goodwill, every act of treachery: there was only one ending. Each mortal flesh with its fears and dreams and hopes, each and every arduous journey has one destination: by the hand of his brother Hermes they shall come to him. And so what did it matter, to whom the discordant Helen goes now? In the end, she will go to him.
He had not chosen what he was, did not choose the realm which he ruled. And yet it is what it is, and it is what always will be. It is his duty, it is his sovereign, it is his invisible realm that cannot be transcended, not even by the Gods.
Where else would his loyalties lie?
There is no need to mask the truth. The words slip slowly, disinterestedly, obviously from his lips: “Always and forever to the Underworld.”
