Book Review: Lost in the Never Woods by Aiden Thomas
Book Review: Lost in the Never Woods by Aiden Thomas
From the author of Cemetery Boys comes a dark YA retelling of Peter Pan. In this version, Wendy returned from Neverland with no memory and no little brothers in tow. After five years of wondering and guilt, Peter Pan plunges back into her life, bringing the shadow of their past with him.Continue reading
i keep thinking about an event or something for polytheists focused on writingmyth retellings.
if its something specific itd be like a “MythReWriMo” (along the lines of a “Myth-Retelling Writing Month” or anything with less of a silly name fkdkdkd)
and maybe even something more non-specific? like not a month-long thing, but a more general event for coming up with retellings.
or better yet !! modern myths!!narratives or poetry
(with monthly or weekly prompts perhaps, maybe focusing on different deities depending on the time?)
i just feel like itd be so cool to have a little community interacting with our own versions of the known stories, and also with modern mythos, new stories, with the gods interacting with new domains that are a part of modern worship and cultus….
I have not been reading a lot of YA this year but spotted this in Waterstones yesterday and I just had to get it! Cinderella is one of my favourite fairy tales, and this book offers such an interesting and original twist on the classic tale. So far I have been enjoying it, and think it would have a great Christmas gift for any fans of fairytale retellings!
As a WoC, it is also great to see another WoC as a central character in a YA novel where her colour is not a plot point. She’s already got the patriarchy to deal with, and she’s rocking that!
I am only an Ally myself, but I can imagine how great young adults from the LGBTQ+ community must feel to see themselves in here as well!
ARC Review: Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan
ARC Review: Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan
A captivating debut fantasy inspired by the legend of Chang’e, the Chinese moon goddess, in which a young woman’s quest to free her mother pits her against the most powerful immortal in the realm.Growing up on the moon, Xingyin is accustomed to solitude, unaware that she is being hidden from the feared Celestial Emperor who exiled her mother for stealing his elixir of immortality. But when…
Audiobook Review: A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
Audiobook Review: A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
From the Trojan women whose fates now lie in the hands of the Greeks, to the Amazon princess who fought Achilles on their behalf, to Penelope awaiting the return of Odysseus, to the three goddesses whose feud started it all, these are the stories of the women whose lives, loves, and rivalries were forever altered by this long and tragic war. A woman’s epic, powerfully imbued with new life, A…
Mini Review: The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard
Mini Review: The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard
Welcome to the Scattered Pearls Belt, a collection of ring habitats and orbitals ruled by exiled human scholars and powerful families, and held together by living mindships who carry people and freight between the stars. In this fluid society, human and mindship avatars mingle in corridors and in function rooms, and physical and virtual realities overlap, the appareance of environments easily…
Everything was lost. My brother was dead. My love was gone.
I was also stranded on a deserted island. I stared out at the vast, empty expanse of the sea. The sunlight on the waves winked at me with a thousand eyes, as though diamonds had been scattered across the surface of the water. Anyone would find this beach tranquil, I suppose, if they were here under different circumstances than mine.
My brother’s name was Asterion.
Most people didn’t know his name, or even that he had one. To most people, he was the Minotaur, a horrible monster with the body of a man and the head of a bull that eats people. Asterion was a monster, and he dideat people.
Beneath my father’s shining palace, he prowled the twists and turns of the Labyrinth that my father’s genius architect built. The Labyrinth was mine, once. Daedalus made it for me as a dancing path, when I was a little girl. But now it is a dark, disorienting maze of seemingly endless passageways, and I was still the only person who knew how to navigate it. When I could have time alone, I would go to the Labyrinth. I felt my way through its pitch-black corridors, memorizing the nicks and cracks in the rough stone, trying to calm my thoughts. I spoke to Asterion through the walls: “You have never seen the sun,” I said to him. “Do you ever wonder what it’s like in the outside world? Or do you like it down here?” I received no answer from the surrounding darkness. If I did hear something — a snort, or hooves on stone, I would have to run as fast as I could away from the sound. Even I couldn’t go too near Asterion — I wouldn’t want to run the risk that he might attack me.
“Why do you go down there?” My sister, Phaedra, asked me. “What could possibly be appealing about that dark, dismal place?”
“I like it down there,” I said, trying to sound as matter-of-fact as I could. “It is peaceful. And I don’t mind the dark.”
She looked at me like I had suddenly sprouted bull’s horns myself. “You know you risk your life every time you enter the Labyrinth, right?”
“He’s our brother,” I said. I don’t know what I intended to explain by saying that. I felt like I had a responsibility to him that extended beyond simply being his sister. I tried to see a man in him, although he sniffed and bellowed and charged like a bull. He could gore me to death like a bull, but I did not fear him. “I can’t say I love him, but I feel something.”
“You shouldn’t feel any sympathy for him. He’s a freak of nature. The gods cursed us with him for our father’s arrogance. He is a shame upon our kingdom.”
She was right, of course. The gods gifted us a beautiful white bull that we were meant to sacrifice to Poseidon, but my father decided to keep it instead. And Poseidon cursed us… Asterion is the unholy offspring of my mother and the bull. And it gets worse. Every seven years, seven young men and seven young women from the city of Athens were brought to the Labyrinth to be fed to my brother. This was because my other brother, whom I was too young to remember, died while in Athens. Athens pays for this slight with the lives of other young people.
I suppose it’s no different than war, or at least, that’s what my father says. All cities send their youths to die for the polis. How was this any different? I could hardly bear the prisoners’ wails of desperation or their pleas for me to help them. When I heard they were coming, I begged my father to set them free, asserting that it was wrong to sacrifice humans to anything.If the gods had cast Tantalus into Tartarus for feeding them his son, then why should we knowingly feed humans to a monster? He laughed at me and asked why I had no pride in my family.
I hated the thought of the fourteen young people being fed to him, but I also couldn’t imagine killing my own brother, even if he was a monster.
I was too young to remember the last time the prisoners came to the Labyrinth. They had come, and my brother had gorged himself on their flesh, and I was none the wiser. This time, I knew, and the horror of it struck me silent as the tributes were paraded through the city like animal sacrifices to the gods, so that we could all see those who were doomed to die. I could hardly bear to look at them. Some of those girls were barely older than me. It felt wrong to sit by and watch as they were brought to the Labyrinth. But what could I do to save their lives? Supplicating my father would not work, and the only other option was helping them to escape, somehow. How could I do that?
In spite of myself, I caught sight of one of the young men. He was handsome, and he had a defiant, blazing look in his eye. He looked straight at my father on his throne. “I am Theseus of Athens!” he declared. “I have come to slay your monstrous son!”
My father had laughed at him, but he consumed my thoughts. That may be because he was absolutely gorgeous, but it was also because if he succeeded at killing Asterion, he would solve all my problems. I wouldn’t have to take my own brother’s life, but he would devour no more innocent lives. And, if this youth survived, he might take me away with him. I knew the Labyrinth better than anyone. Even if he did survive, he could never make it in and out without my help.
Forgive me, Asterion.
The prisoners were held in two dank cells near the entrance to the Labyrinth. The women were kept in one, and the men were kept in the other. Many of the prisoners were crying — not just the women, but the men, too. In my familiarity with the Labyrinth and its inhabitant, I had forgotten just how terrifying both would be to anyone else. The Labyrinth’s darkness and maddening complexity would intimidate anyone, and the prospect of being eaten by a monster within its depths was horrific.
Only Theseus seemed calm. His boldness in front of my father hadn’t been an act. His jaw was set, and he still had raw determination in his steely eyes. He was really going to do it, wasn’t he? He actually meant to kill Asterion. He shone like gold in the gloom of the dungeon — he could have been Apollo. If our circumstances were different, I might have wanted to stroke his chest. “Who are you?” he demanded when I approached the cell, as though I were the one behind bars, and had requested an audience with him.
“I am Ariadne,” I said, “daughter of Minos, princess of Crete.”
“I am Theseus, son of Aegeus, prince of Athens,” he returned.
Prince of Athens. That explained his noble bearing and proud mien, not to mention his handsome features… and yet… “There is no way the King of Athens would have sent his own son to be fed to the Minotaur,” I said. “Why are you really here?”
“I said, didn’t I? I’m here to slay the Minotaur. I volunteered as tribute.” He smirked. “I promised my father that I would return alive. No more of our people will be sacrificed to the monster!”
“You speak with a lot of confidence for someone who is currently in a prison cell,” I said. “What are you going to do, Theseus? Do you have a plan?”
“Of course I have a plan!” he said, a little defensively. “I am going to break out of this cell. And then I will conquer the Labyrinth—”
“How? You’ll be dead of starvation before you even reach the Minotaur, assuming he doesn’t find you first.”
His eyes narrowed. “Are you tauntingme?”
I leaned forward, looking directly into his eyes. “No. I was actually going to offer to help you. I know the Labyrinth. I go into it all the time.”
“No, you don’t. You’re trying to get me to sleep with you. Or trying to deceive me on behalf of Minos.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but couldn’t find anything to say in response to that. For a moment I just stared at him. Was he always this self-assured, even in the worst of circumstances? If he wantedto sleep with me, I certainly wouldn’t complain, but why would he assume that I would deceive him? Well, perhaps it was his right to be suspicious, in a strange land where he was kept as a prisoner. “I… no,” I finally replied. “I’m being serious. I’m here to help you.”
“Why, then?”
“I think it is very noble of you to want to save the other Athenians, and I agree that no more innocent lives should be lost.”
He smiled slightly, but still looked suspicious. “You have no loyalty to your father?”
“My father is cruel and selfish. Why else do you think my mother gave birth to a monster, anyway?”
“The monster is your brother? What was his father, a bull?”
“Yes.”
That seemed to have stunned him into silence. I felt some satisfaction at that. “Listen to me. Without my help, you will not get through the Labyrinth. If you want to kill the Minotaur, you need me.”
“What’s the catch?” he asked. “You’re going to want something in return, aren’t you? What?”
“Take me off this accursed rock,” I said. “I am sick of Crete, I’m sick of my father, and I don’t want to have to put up with whatever punishment he might give me for helping you.”
“Well, you area princess, and I suppose you would make a fine bride for me.”
My heart leapt at those words, and I felt myself blushing. Perhaps I should have known better. “Really? You would marry me?”
“If you help me to slay the Minotaur, then yes, I will marry you.”
“Deal.”
Theseus remained in my thoughts from that point onward. When I closed my eyes, I saw his face, and I imagined the feel of his skin. I’d never seen a man like him before, and oh, if I married him… would I be happy? Happier than I was here, at least? He seemed like the kind of man that Phaedra and I dreamed we would marry as young girls — strong, brave, handsome, and willing to put himself on the line for the sake of his people. All such admirable qualities.
I returned to Theseus when the prisoners were locked into the Labyrinth’s abyssal maw. “Everyone else, stay back!” he ordered, as though he were directing troops. “I will go into the Labyrinth and kill the Minotaur. Stay here, and you will be safe.” He suddenly turned to me. “What have you brought to help me?”
I held out a humble ball of yarn. “This.”
He took it from my hand and raised an eyebrow at it, looking as though he might throw it into the dark. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Daedalus gave it to me when I first started exploring the Labyrinth.”
“Daedalus? I’ve heard of Daedalus. He is supposed to be the most brilliant architect in the world, right?”
“He built this Labyrinth, and he gave me the yarn. All you have to do is tie the end here and carry it through the maze. Then you can follow it back out.”
Theseus looked impressed. “He must be a genius to have thought of something like that!”
He may have been a genius, but I was still intelligent enough to figure it out on my own. All Daedalus had done was hand me the ball of yarn, and I immediately understood what I was meant to do with it. But I didn’t bother correcting Theseus. “Do you have a weapon?”
“No,” said Theseus. “I’m not worried. I’ll kill the beast with my bare hands.”
I blinked at him, dumbfounded. I suppose if anyone could do it, he could; he was almost as musclebound as the bull-man. But still.Only an extremely impressive hero with divine lineage could hope to kill a monster bare-handed, that or a total idiot. “You are going to die.”
“Nonsense!” He smiled. “Haven’t died yet! And I have faced many deadly trials before.”
I smiled back. “I’m sure you have, but, well, it’s your funeral.”
“Do you want this monster dead, or not?” he demanded.
“Woah, I wasn’t being serious, I…” To be asked that question point-blank was unsettling. It threw my whole dilemma into focus. But seeing the terrified faces of the other tributes huddled naked in the entrance to the Labyrinth gave me my answer. “Yes.”
“I shall go then.” He tied the yarn to the gate and strode with it into the dark. I admired his confidence, even if the odds were against him. He turned the first corner, and was gone. I stared into the darkness for a moment.
One of the girls gripped the hem of my dress. “Please,” she whispered. “Please help us, my lady. We did nothing to be here. If he dies, will you help us escape?”
I didn’t look at her. I kept staring into the Labyrinth’s depths. “I will do what I can,” I said slowly. Then I followed Theseus. I heard her gasp behind me, as if her last hope had just walked away.
I overtook Theseus quickly. He was moving slowly, blindly hitting walls and getting disoriented by the serpentine turns. He jumped when he heard me behind him, turned on his heel and braced for attack, staring me down with the intensity of a bull about to charge. Then he softened. “Oh. It’s you. What are you doing here? I don’t need your help.”
“I know this place better than you do,” I said matter-of-factly.
He huffed in response. “Get back to the entrance. The Minotaur could arrive at any moment.”
I walked ahead of him. “I know. Every time I explore the Labyrinth, I risk death.”
“Why would you explore this place?” he asked, following me. “What could it possibly offer a girl like you?”
“Peace. Solitude. Time away from my father.”
“This Labyrinth is maddening!” His growing frustration echoed off the walls. “How are you not mad? Perhaps you are mad, with the things you say.”
“I’ve never considered that I might be mad.”
“Only if you were mad would you willingly choose to be in this dark prison.”
“Youwillingly chose to be here.”
He had no response. We walked in silence for a while, dragging the thread behind us. It was almost impossible to see the thread in the dark. I could tell that Theseus was starting to get agitated. The twining paths of the Labyrinth must be making him feel like we were making no progress. The grim silence and high stone walls made us feel completely cut off from the outside world, like there was no world at all beyond the Labyrinth. “Do you think this is what Hades is like?” he asked. “A deep cavern, under the earth, where there is nothing to do but walk endlessly?”
I couldn’t tell whether that was a sincere philosophical question, or whether he was asking indignantly. “I don’t know. The Fields of Asphodel are supposed to be open, and full of the white flowers… Not quite like this.”
“It makes no difference to me anyway. I will assuredly go to Elysium when I die, and it is the most agreeable part of Hades.”
If Hades is exactly like this, I thought, then perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad. There are worse things than this.
Eventually, we passed the point where I usually turned back. I had never gotten this close to the center before. And then we heard it — the unmistakable sound of hooves. Cold terror gripped me. I did not expect to feel this afraid, especially not of my own brother, but the reality of the situation sank in. We were in a Labyrinth with a flesh-eating monster, and the exit was too far away for any chance of escape. Why did I follow him? Why did I think that was a good idea?
“Our quarry is upon us! You should leave,” said Theseus sternly. “The monster eats the maidens first, so I hear.”
The instinct to run left me. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Suit yourself, but you will not be able to fight against the Minotaur.”
“You will protect me, will you?” Being with him felt safe, like he was a bodyguard.
“I will.” As soon as he said that, my fear was banished, and my confidence restored.
A few more turns, and we reached the center of the Labyrinth, a place I figured I’d never enter. In the gloom, I couldn’t actually see much, but I was able to see the hulking shape of my brother with his huge bull’s head and wicked-looking horns.
“There is the beast!” A light suddenly blazed to life beside me, and I cringed away from its brightness. It was a torch.
“Did you have that the whole time?”
“I was saving it!” He handed me the torch and the end of the yarn, and I took them, nonplussed. I saw the floor of the Labyrinth’s center, full of human bones. “Wait there, I will make swift work of this!” Theseus took a fighting stance, muscles tensed.
Asterion looked at me. I felt blind panic grip me, but he did not attack me. Perhaps he recognized me. He must have been familiar with my presence and voice by now, enough to know I wasn’t a threat. I stared into his black bull eyes. They were soft, not fiery and enraged. This was my brother. “Asterion… I’m so sorry, Asterion.”
“What are you doing? Get back!”
Theseus’ yell attracted Asterion’s attention. He roared and rushed forward with his powerful legs, horns lowered and ready to gore him to death. Theseus grabbed Asterion’s horns and hurled himself up onto the Minotaur’s back, holding him in a chokehold with both arms. “I shall send you to the pit of Tartarus, fiend!” Asterion thrashed and bucked and slammed Theseus against the wall, but soon enough, it was over. Theseus had strangled the Minotaur. Asterion lay dead.
Theseus picked himself up, looking exhausted but triumphant. “Victory! No Athenians will die today, or ever! This monster will never claim another human life!” He grinned at me. “See, I told you I could do it with my bare hands!”
I stared at the mass of Asterion’s body. “I killed my brother…”
“Nonsense!” Theseus took the torch back from me. The bones crunched under his feet as he walked. “It is hardly your fault that you are the sister of a beast. We have done a good and heroic thing today. Look, look at the bones! Why are you crying, Ariadne?”
I suddenly looked at him instead of the Minotaur’s corpse. I don’t think he’d said my name before. Even in the dim torchlight, he still looked bright, with clear eyes and golden hair and bronze skin slick with sweat. “I couldn’t have done this without you, Ariadne.” He smiled at me. “Thank you. Together we have saved many lives.”
He kissed me, and the torch went out.
The following events were a blur. After we had successfully followed the thread out of the Labyrinth, Theseus triumphantly announced to my father that the Minotaur was dead, and demanded me and my sister as prizes. My father was furious — of course he was. He had essentially just lost all of his children, and all because one had died in Athens before I was old enough to remember. I, however, was elated, and so was Phaedra. Phaedra was as eager to leave Crete as I was, and she seemed just as taken with Theseus’ handsomeness. She didn’t seem distressed that Asterion was dead, and why would she? The grateful Athenians went back to their ship, many of them sobbing with relief. I didn’t look at my father as I followed Theseus to the ship. I never wanted to look at him again. We passed by Talos, and I left Knossos and the Labyrinth behind me.
Crete faded into the horizon, and before me was sunshine and new possibilities. Theseus glowed with triumph and pride, smiling at me and kissing me when he announced to the other Athenians that he would marry me, and that I would become their queen. They fell to their knees and showered me and Theseus with gratitude for having saved their lives. I felt almost as if I were a goddess. Wine flowed freely in celebration, and I took more joy in it than I had in a long time.
It did not last long. Soon after the first few hours I was, if possible, even more miserable on Theseus’ ship than I had been in Knossos. I quickly became tired of his boasts about how he had strangled the beast, without crediting me at all, or so much as mentioning the ball of yarn, even though the other Athenians had seen me give it to him and seen me follow him into the Labyrinth. Every time he told the story, it got further from the truth, and emphasized his own heroism over mine. Is this how it would be when I was queen? No matter what I did, I’d be shunted to the side? Then, Theseus seemed to be doting on Phaedra. She usually attracted more attention. She was prettier than me. She had blond hair that shined in the sunlight and the bright eyes of our mother Pasiphae, the daughter of Helios. My hair and eyes were dark, like the Labyrinth.
I left the celebration, finding a quiet spot on deck. I sat by the edge of the ship, staring out into the open waves and trying not to think about Asterion, but the image of him lying dead in the torchlight haunted me. “Are you okay, Ariadne?” Phaedra asked me. “What is wrong? We are finallyout of there, all thanks to you! No more Minotaur, no more tributes having to die, no more Father… We will have a new life in Athens.” I stayed silent. “You look despondent. Something’s wrong.”
I looked up into her eyes. “It’s like you said, Phaedra. Asterion is dead.”
“Do you… mourn him?”
“He was our brother,and I killed him!”
“Theseus killed him! You did nothing!” I knew that she meant to reassure me, but it touched a raw nerve.
“He would not have if I hadn’t led him straight to the center of the Labyrinth!”
“Ariadne…” Phaedra put her hand on my shoulder. “You… you’re… you’ll be okay. You are just a little bit disoriented.” She left me alone.
I looked at the Athenians, who laughed and danced and celebrated their lives. I didn’t feel like dancing. I already missed the Labyrinth. My guilt drew my thoughts back to Knossos. I wanted to hide in the Labyrinth forever, like Asterion had, or else throw myself into the sea for my guilt. The brightness of the waves was glaring compared to the soothing darkness of the Labyrinth.
Theseus approached me from behind. He had been ignoring me until now, maybe because I was so sorrowful. I could feel that he was angry at me, and my skin crawled, but I didn’t turn. “What cause do you have to weep, Ariadne? You should be happy!” he said.
“I am sorry, Theseus. Part of me still mourns for my brother.”
“What is the matterwith you? All you have done is sit and stare at the water! If you loved that Labyrinth so much, perhaps you should have stayed there! Now please, put this sorrow behind you. You have no cause for it.” He sighed, softening. “When we arrive in Athens, we shall marry, and there will be much rejoicing.”
“Leave me alone.” The bitterness in my voice rang louder than I’d intended.
He scowled at me.“You are joyless, passionless, and thankless,” he spat, and stalked off. The word uselesswent unsaid; I could tell he was reconsidering making me his wife.
I stood up, and he turned back to look at me, and I felt as if I were naked under his gaze and that of the others on the ship, which had all quieted and turned in my direction. His eyes were cold, and his nostrils flared just as Asterion’s had. “What, Ariadne? You have shown me neither gratitude nor pleasure, you have not acted like a princess. What do you have to say for yourself?”
Shamed, I said nothing. I sat back down. Then, as he was about to turn away again, I suddenly found my voice. “Why are you being cruel?”
“I am not being cruel. You are being difficult.”
By the time we reached Naxos, I was feeling heartbroken as well as grief-stricken. Theseus was giving me the silent treatment. I think he expected me to come running to him begging for forgiveness. We stopped on the island to rest, primarily because Theseus had dreamt that he would stop here during his homecoming.
I took off my sandals and walked along the edge of the surf to clear my thoughts. The beach was bright and wide and open, the exact opposite of the Labyrinth. Even in the sand, I felt his heavy footsteps approaching behind me. “Ariadne, we need to talk.”
I continued to face away from him. “What?”
“Ariadne, I find your attitude disagreeable.”
I turned on my heel to face him, planting myself in the sand. “I’ve found yourattitude disagreeable! All you have done since we left Crete is boast about your heroics, and you’ve barely given me any credit—”
“Credit! You want credit for having slain it, when all you have done is cry over the hideous thing?”
The disdain in his voice stung me like arrows. “You don’t care at all for me or my feelings, do you?”
“If you were to become my queen, I would expect better behavior from you.” He sounded like he was lecturing a child.
“Well… I don’t want to be your queen! You are almost as bad as my father!”
“Good. I have already decided to take your sister Phaedra as my bride instead.” I didn’t reply. “You may still return with us to Athens, but we will have to make other arrangements for you.”
Forget Athens. I didn’t want Theseus to do anything for me. “Oh, forgive me for having been such a disappointment to you! Go ahead, go back to Athens and marry my sister! By Zeus! I’ve had enough of you!”
And I ran. I turned away from Theseus and ran down the beach until my legs gave out, falling in the sand to sulk and wonder where it all went wrong. I regretted having ever met Theseus, or helped him to kill my brother. If I could undo it all, I would. No. Then innocent people would have died. Oh, gods, why am I so wretched?
And then, as I was just beginning to calm down, I saw that the ship was sailing away over the waves. I was stranded on the island. Despair and panic crashed down upon me. Oh gods, gods, why?Had I somehow been forgotten about, or left behind on purpose? Had Theseus doomed me to die? “CURSE you, Theseus!” I screamed at the distant ship. I watched it go until it disappeared over the horizon. I could do nothing but hopelessly stare at the wine-dark sea as the sun set.
“Excuse me, why are you crying?”
I had been sitting with my head in my arms, weeping despondently, and I was startled by the sudden voice, soft though it was. I was certain the island was deserted, but now, a young man stood before me. He was silhouetted against the sky, the sun shining behind his head like a halo. Where had he come from? I hadn’t heard him come. It was though he’d simply stepped out of the sea.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and my voice sounded cracked from crying. “I thought I was alone.”
“May I sit with you?” the man asked. “You look like you could use a drink, something to soothe you, hm?”
“Yes… yes, thank you.”
He sat down in the sand next to me, languidly stretching his legs out in front of him like he was sitting on the plushest couch. With the sunlight on him, I could see him properly — he was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen in my life. He easily put Theseus to shame. His eyes were leafy green, warm and kind. He was lithe, and his skin looked as pale and smooth as a girl’s, and his lips looked so soft. I couldn’t place the color of his hair — it seemed to be dark brown, but it could have been as dark as the Styx, and when the sun caught it, it looked honey-gold. It fell over his shoulders in loose curls. He wore nothing but a fine purple cloak draped over one shoulder, a golden leopard skin around his waist, and a wreath of ivy on his head. His cheeks were flushed, and he had a bright, easy smile. He was so lovely, so breathtaking, it almost hurt to look at him. With delicate hands, he offered me a kylix brimming with wine. “Please, tell me what has made you so upset.”
I blinked at the kylix, and the leopard skin, and the ivy in his hair. “Are you… a Bacchant?” I’d heard of them. They worshipped a mad and savage god with drunken orgies in the woods, and were said to be able to rip animals or even people limb-from-limb in their frenzy. Not unlike Asterion, I suppose.
He flashed a devious smile. “Maaaaybe.”
I took the kylix and drank deeply. The wine was sweet, and somehow, I felt immediately calmer. Slowly, amid my lingering sobs, I told the story — about Asterion, and my father, and the tributes, how I’d decided to help Theseus, how we’d found our way through the Labyrinth, how Theseus had killed Asterion, how Theseus had been so heartless, and how he had apparently left me to die on a deserted island. By the time I finished talking, the kylix was empty.
“How do you feel now?” he asked me.
“Better… I think. But I’m still devastated, and… guilty. My brother’s death… it was really my fault, and I don’t know if I did the right thing or not. Do you think it’s wrong for me to grieve for my brother? I mean… he wasa monster…”
“No. I don’t think it’s wrong. It is perfectly understandable that you would mourn your brother.”
“If I had let the Athenians die, I would have mourned for them, too.” I sighed.
“Yes. There must be blood; one sacrifice was traded for another, Asterion, the worthy bull. It is okay to grieve, for as long as you need to, but do not wallow in despair.”
“I tend to do that. I don’t remember the last time I was completely happy. I thought Theseus would make me happy, but… then… I wish I had my Labyrinth back! It was at least soothing down there.”
“It pains me to see people sad,” he said. He handed me the kylix again, and it was once again full of wine. I hadn’t seen him fill it. “Pleasure is a state of mind. The best way to rid yourself of sadness is to focus on things that make you happy. There is always something to take pleasure in! Like the beauty of the sunset, or the sound of the lapping waves. Or wine!”
“Not when you are abandoned to die, with no way off the island,” I said. “How did you get here, anyway? I don’t see a boat.”
“I have my ways,” he said cryptically, with that same mischievous smile. That smile and the teasing sparkle in his eyes were so adorable. His beauty is something to take pleasure in, I suddenly thought, and his company, and kindness…
I took another draught of the wine. “Why are the gods so cruel to me?” I murmured, more to myself than to him.
“The gods are not cruel to you.” He stated it with complete confidence, as though it were an undeniable fact, not as though he were trying to convince me.
“It certainly seems that way,” I replied.
“Life can often seem that way, but then, it gets better, and you will find that the gods favor you,” he said.
“Well… I suppose that must be true, if handsome strangers pop out of nowhere to comfort women.”
He beamed. “Exactly!” He took the kylix back from me, threw his head back, and drained about half of it in one gulp. “You know, I was stranded on a desert island like this one once.”
“Wait, what? You were?”
“Yes! It was a long time ago now, but I was just as pretty back then, and just as fond of wearing purple. Purple is the best color, you know.” He winked. “Anyway, so I was lying asleep on a beach and—” he took another swig of the wine, “a pirate ship rows by…”
“Are you drunk?”
“Always, darling!” That roguish grin of his was really starting to win me over. “Anyway, the pirates saw me sleeping on the beach, saw how pretty I was and saw my fine purple robes, and thought I was a prince. Well. They weren’t wrong…I technically am a prince of Thebes, on my mother’s side.” He laughed like he had just told the most hilarious joke and had another sip of the wine. The amount of wine in the kylix never seemed to get any lower.
“Does that mean… you’re a bastard?” I asked hesitantly.
“Yes, yes it does! I’m sucha bastard. I mean… I was born out of wedlock. And my father’s wife, oooh, she hatesme.” Another sip of the wine. “Never get on her bad side if you can help it.” He pointed at me as if this was the most important information I could ever learn, and I laughed. “She can’t touch me now, but she drove me mad when I was younger. Literally. Anyway, so these pirates kidnapped me. Thought I’d make a damn cute catamite, and I certainly would,but that’s beside the point. You don’t and kidnap boys no matter how pretty they are. I tried to tell my dad that, but it didn’t go over well.” Another sip of the wine.
“You are slender, but I bet you could take Theseus in a drinking contest.”
“Oh, I could take aaaaaanyonein a drinking contest! Never lost one yet!” His face was glowing, not just with blush from the wine but also with infectious joy. I slowly forgot about my misfortunes as I listened to his story. “So they tried to tie me to the ship’s mast, but found they couldn’t do it. I only tolerate bondage on my own terms. And then…” There was suddenly a mad gleam in his green eyes. “I covered their ship in grapevines, and ivy, and flowers, and the delicious smell of wine. I can’t imagine why such delightful things frightened them so. But I thought I’d scare them more, see, because it was funny. So I turned into a lion! And they flung themselves overboard in fear!” He laughed, and his laugh sounded as musical as flutes on a clear morning, but it had a maddened edge to it. “But I pitied them, y’know?” he continued. “Just as you pity your brother. So I changed them into dolphins. So they wouldn’t drown.”
“You changed… you turned into… did… did your god give you those powers? Or… are you just… really… drunk?” But I knew. I think that intuitively, I knew the whole time.
“Easy,” he said, once again raising the bottomless kylix to his lips with that knowing smile. “I’m reallydrunk.”
At this, I burst out laughing, and my laugh sounded almost unfamiliar to my own ears. I felt light, carefree, replenished. And then it sank in, that I was speaking to a god.I hastily knelt, and dropped my head before him, although he was still sitting next to me. “Lord Dionysus! Son of Zeus! Lord, lord, thank you for coming to me, for talking to me, for relieving me of my pain, for freeing me from my suffering…”
“You’re welcome, Ariadne.” He lifted my face, so that I was staring up into his eyes, which were now vivid reddish-purple, the color of ripe grapes. A richly purple aura surrounded him, proclaiming his divinity. In his hand was his staff, a fennel stalk topped with a pinecone that dripped with honey, twined with ivy and purple ribbons. And he had horns,bull’s horns just like my brother’s, magnificent and deadly sharp. They curved up above his brow, as much his crown as the wreath of ivy in his hair. The imposing horns created a striking contrast with his delicate features, but they looked right,somehow. Like this was how he was supposed to look.
I didn’t know what to say. My mind had gone suddenly blank. “I’ve never known great Dionysus to have horns,” I blurted.
“Not many get to see them,” he said, his voice suddenly slow and solemn. “Ariadne, will you dance with me?”
Whatever I had expected him to say, it was not that. “Wh—what?”
“Dance with me!” He stood up and twirled off across the beach. His hair floated around his shoulders, the ribbons on his thyrsus arced through the air like the rainbow, and his expression was one of elation. He screamed in ecstasy, and it was an inhuman sound, like the crowing of some unearthly bird. At that, the air filled with cacophonous music — flutes, drums, cymbals, rattles, castanets.
A command echoed inside my head. No, not a command — a compulsion: DANCE! DANCE!
So I danced with the bull-horned god. “Dancing” barely even begins to describe what I was doing. I was filled with an overwhelming, indescribable feeling, like I didn’t fit in my own skin. Like I was about to be lifted out of my own shoulders! I moved like my body was doing everything it could to express this ineffable thing inside me that was so much bigger than me. I spun, I leapt, I ran, I stamped my feet in the sand, I moved wherever the feeling took me. It burned like fire. And Dionysus was all I could perceive. I screamed with both intense rapture and pure, genuine worship: “EUOI! EUOI! EUOI!”
I met his eyes, and there I saw all the raw ferocity of a bull or a great cat, as well as chaos and lust and debauchery and pure mania. All the forces strong enough to tear a person apart! I desperately thirsted for something I could not name. It was more than wine, more than flesh, more than blood. Dionysus took me in his arms, and kissed me on the lips. Passion overtook me.
Maybe I fainted in exhilaration, or maybe I was simply too drunk to remember. All I know was that I was eventually awakened by the sunrise and the sound of lapping waves. And Dionysus… was still there. He hadn’t disappeared into the night, he was still sleeping there in the sand, looking blissful and alluring in his sleep. His tousled curls tumbled over the sand, his soft hand was upturned beside his head, and his lips were parted invitingly. He lay on his purple cloak, and was using the leopard pelt like a blanket, though it was only carelessly draped over his waist.
“Lord… thank you for not leaving me,” I whispered.
His long eyelashes fluttered, and then his eyes opened, once again appearing vine-green. “Mmmm… sleep well?”
“Yes.” I desperately wanted to kiss him, and the seductive look in his eyes tempted me. “May I… touch you?”
“Darling, you may touch me anywhere you like,” he purred. Ravenously, I wrapped my arms around his waist, pressed my chest to his, and our lips met. He still tasted like wine, and I drank him in the way I would wine. We lay there for a moment, entangled in each other’s arms like grape and ivy vines, idly caressing each other’s skin and hair.
“M’lord…” I whispered, “perhaps it might be impertinent to ask, but… what am I going to do now? I can’t go home. I don’t really want to go to Athens. And I still have no way off this island.”
“Why, Ariadne,” he gave me a teasing smile. “If I may be so bold, I hoped you would join me! In fact… I hope you might marry me.”
I was so taken aback by this that I immediately sat up. “You… you’re serious? Marry you?” I knew that gods frequently took mortal lovers, but this was unimaginable. “Actually marry you?”
“Yes, Ariadne. I love you.” He said it with the same sweetness and sincerity that he initially approached me with. Theseus had said no such thing. “You are not destined to become queen of Athens, but perhaps you might be my queen, if you are willing.”
I burst into tears, but they weren’t tears of sadness this time. They were tears of overwhelm, the same kind of overflowing sensation that I’d felt while dancing. “You loveme?”
“I am absolutely besotted, my darling! I have had many lovers, but I had not fallen so madly in love since Ampelos, my first love, my darling vine.” A grapevine appeared between his fingers and twined up his arm. “Perhaps something in me is inclined towards mortals over gods, which is understandable, given my parentage. But, that should be no problem. I will bring you to Olympus, and love you for all of time.”
“How… why me?” I sputtered. “What have I done to deserve this?”
“Ariadne, you are letting your human mind interfere, and convince you that you are not worthy to be in my presence. Did you feel unworthy last night, while we were dancing?”
“No… I felt… there was no such thing.”
“Ariadne, do you love me?”
I struggled to find any word that could properly describe how I felt about him. “You are… utterly intoxicating.”
He giggled like a shy maiden. “I get that a lot. And, if you could be worthy of having me as a husband, would you have me?”
Yes.My body and soul ached and burned with wanting. And he made me extraordinarily happy! I’d never dared to believe a god would love me enough to marry me, but that disbelief was only getting in my way.
He looked me dead in the eyes. I nearly flinched away from the intensity of his gaze, and the shimmering madness behind it. “You are more than you realize, Ariadne, guide in the dark, guardian of the gates of initiation. You are intelligent and witty and brave, and you fear no darkness or madness or savagery, do you? You faced them all in the Labyrinth. You would make an excellent addition to my thiasus, even if you decide not to marry me. Ariadne, the most holy and pure, Lady of the Labyrinth.” His words reverberated deep in the labyrinthine pathways of my own mind and soul, like he had revealed an ancient truth that I had known once, but forgotten.
“The Labyrinth is a holy place, of contemplation and transformation. Isn’t it? Not of death.”
He smiled that gorgeous, winning smile again. “Yes! You understand! And even where there is death, it is not absolute.” His eyes shone with feverish excitement. “Oh, I have so much to teach you!”
“Lord Dionysus, I would be honored beyond imagining if I were to become your wife.”
“So is that a yes? You will marry me?”
Something about him felt rightin a way that I could not put words to, like the Fates had done all they could to bring me to this moment. This god loved me, more than the other gods love their conquests, more than I could comprehend. “Yes! I will marry you!”
At that, a cool wind blew across the island, swirling his dark hair around his face and making all the vegetation appear to shimmer. It was like the island itself was affirming my decision. “Then, Ariadne, we shall rule the revel together! In honor of our engagement…” A magnificent diadem appeared in his hands, sparkling with seven gemstones like stars. He placed it on my head, and gave me a warm kiss on my lips. “Ariadne, my bride, may you never thirst. May your lusts never go unsatisfied. May your heart always be light and joyful.”
“Thank you. Thank you, m’lord!”
“You can stop calling me that. If we are to be married, you can simply call me by my name. Or, call me what pleases you. Now, come with me!” He stood, offering me his hand. “Unless you would rather spend some more alone time together, I should finally take you off this island! I will take you home to Nysa, or perhaps to Arcadia, and we will have to throw the most spectacular bacchanal in celebration of our marriage!”
“How will we travel?”
He led me down the beach like a child eager to show something to their parent, and gestured toward a golden chariot drawn by two gigantic panthers. The chariot itself was decorated in images of swirling grapevines and serpents and satyrs making love, and the cats’ pelts gleamed. “Oh, gods… I mean… wow.Does it move over water?”
“It flies, silly!” He stood inside it and beckoned to me. “These cats can run on the wind. Hermes gave them to me.”
I climbed into the chariot and held on for dear life as the panthers bounded into the air with great strides. Soon the chariot was blazing through the bright air, and Naxos was far behind us. Dionysus laughed into the wind, which blew his long hair back from his face. As radiant as he was, I was more than a little terrified of speeding through the air high above the sea in a chariot, and felt like I would fall off at any second, although not even my diadem was dislodged from my head.
“You look terror-stricken, Ariadne. Would you like me to tell you another amusing story? That seems to have cheered you up the last time!”
“That depends on whether you can drive a chariot and get incredibly drunk at the same time.”
He laughed uproariously. “Oh, I love you so much! I can do anything and get incredibly drunk, if you were wondering. So, anyway, the story… Mortals have mixed opinions of me. Most love my parties and stories and lovemy wine, but they seem a bit put off by the madness and violence and lust it brings out in them… Not sure why, it’s not as though all of that wasn’t there to begin with… Mortal kings do not like this, and some of them can be quiteunkind to my worshippers, testing the limits of my mercy… but one of them allowed my mentor, Silenus, to sleep in his garden. So kind of him! So of course I offered him any reward he might wish for, and… he wished that everything he touched would turn to gold.”
“Ooh. Let me guess, it backfired?”
“Oh,did it backfire! His food turned to gold and he nearly starved, and even his daughter turned to gold! Hardly my fault, of course. I promised to give him what he asked for, and I did, he just happened to be an idiot. He had the chance to wish for anything in the world, and he chose something as shallow and pointless as gold. Not to mention, he clearly had never heard of inflation, which makes me worry about his kingdom’s economy. Oh, well. He learned, and I changed everything back. I always let humans indulge themselves, but I am not a god of excess. Either they are satisfied by their pleasures, or they learn their lesson fast. The moral of the story: Know your tolerance. Also, if you want to turn things to gold, you have to do it the hard way. Hermes and I were just discussing how to turn lead to gold, in fact…”
His soothing voice and hilarious tales put me at ease, until we were traveling over beautiful mountains and verdant valleys. I had never seen mainland Greece, but the view of it from the flying chariot was incredible. I was no longer afraid of falling. As we flew, I felt as if the wind stripped me of the cares and sorrows of my former life. Dionysus had set me free. I smiled at him, and he smiled at me as the chariot descended into the lush, hidden valley where a throng of Maenads and satyrs waited to welcome home their lord and his queen.
Dionysus helped me out of the chariot, and I stood before the thiasus, their maddened eyes all turned upon me. “I am the bride of Dionysus,” I proclaimed. “I am Ariadne of the Labyrinth.”
Dionysos yawned. This wasn’t comfortable. The ground was hard and the sun was burning from the sky. He blinked as he looked up into the sky, where Helios was about midway on his daily path. Dionysos waved at him because the titan saw all. There was nothing else above. Nothing all around him, really. Apparently he had spent the night on an island that was nothing more than a rock in the sea with some weeds growing on it. Oh well. Good parties sometimes ended in unexpected places. His purple cloak was the only piece of clothing on him but it was all he needed at this time of year. He didn’t worry about getting off the island. His divine powers provided him with an infinite supply of wine and he didn’t necessarily need to eat. Hermes would notice him eventually and get him back to his retinue.
Dionysos’ outlook changed somewhat when a day had passed and nobody had taken note of him. He decided to drown his boredom with wine and stared sullenly at the wide sea. Oh! There was a ship! Dionysos praised his fate and hurried up to the highest part of the island, making sure they would see his purple cloak flapping in the wind. They were quick to arrive and Dionysos made sure he looked thoroughly unthreatening: a youth in the first flush of manhood, well-dressed, well-kempt, a little tipsy… He assumed a seductive pose, his rich, dark hair waving about him in the breeze as he greeted the sailors jumping ashore.
“Can you take me to Naxos?” he asked, putting on his most innocent expression. Even if his retinue was not on Naxos, it was one of his cult centres and he would gladly wait there to meet up with them.
“Of course, of course,” one of the sailors replied. “Come aboard, boy, we’ll bring you to Naxos.”
Happily, Dionysos let the man help him climb the ship. His limbs were still heavy with wine but he’d sleep it off now that he was on the way to Naxos.
He had just drifted off to sleep when harsh bonds were wrapped around his wrists.
“What…”
If he willed it, no bondage could hold him. But even if those pirates deserved punishment for attempting to overpower him in his sleepy state, a mere boy to their eyes, he decided to play along.
“Are you out of your mind?!” The helmsman came running, tearing his own hair. “What god is this whom you have taken? No matter if it’s Zeus or Apollon of the silver bow or Poseidon of the Aegean Sea, by the gods release him! He is too beautiful to be a mortal man, he must be one of the deathless gods who live on Mount Olympos!”
“He is a beauty all right.” The captain traced Dionysos’ full lips with a thick finger. “But not unearthly so. You are a superstitious man, Akoetes. Go mark the wind and help hoist sail.”
“Epopeus! Please, let us set him free at once, lest he grow angry and send dangerous winds and gales!”
“We men will see to him, Akoetes. When we are through with him, he will tell us where he’s going and who his friends and family are. He is not a god but he was sent this way by one. We leave at once.”
Dionysos gave the helmsman a wicked smile as he passed, making the poor soul grow pale with fear. But he had nothing to worry about.
The pirates fastened his bonds to the sail above his head, making him stand on tip-toe. The captain took off the purple cloak that he had worn about his shoulders, exposing his naked body for all to see.
“Dressed in splendid cloth,” he said, rubbing his bearded cheek on the soft wool, “And I can still smell the perfume.”
Another pirate groped his chest, gliding the hand down to his navel.
“Flawless skin and well-fed. Not to mention drunk on black Maronian wine1. He must be a prince.”
“I’m not drunk,” Dionysos protested, “Just a little tipsy.”
“Who are your friends? Where rules your family?” Epopeus asked gruffly. “Tell us and we’ll ransom you instead of selling you in Ephesos2. Believe me, pretty boys like you make good coin. Unless you want to suck cock for the rest of your life, you better play along.”
“For what have I deserved this cruel wrong?” Dionysos pouted. “You are strong men mocking a lonely boy.”
The captain grabbed his jaw and yanked it up.
“Answer my question, prince!”
Dionysos smiled darkly.
“So that’s how you want it. I’m from Boeotia, the blood of Kadmos3. But you are out of luck, pirate. My family will never ransom me.”
Epopeus growled.
“Ephesos it is, then. Alkimedon, take care of him.”
The man who had groped him grinned.
“You know… Before we sell him, why don’t we have some fun with this pretty boy ourselves? What do you say, captain?”
The men laughed and jeered:
“Just look at his lips. So full and soft. They are made to suck cock.”
“Any new master would take him straight to bed!”
“That’s what I thought. We’ll teach you the new skills you’ll need, little prince.”
Dionysos strained against the bonds.
“You wouldn’t dare…”
“I’ll take my chances. Tie him up good, Melas.”
The short, tan man came at him with more rope. Dionysos watched with a smile in his dark eyes as his wrists were joined above his head, his legs spread by the willow cords around his ankles.
“I’ll be our sweet prince’s lucky first,” Epopeus announced. “Break him in, give that virgin arse a good pounding and all that. Alkimedon, go get the olive oil. We don’t wanna lose any of his value at the slave market.”
He grabbed one of the god’s bum cheeks and squeezed, sending an icy chill down the god’s spine.
“I… I don’t think so…” Dionysos gave his voice a quiver, looking at the pirates with big, wide eyes, taking in their lecherous gaze. Men lusted after him frequently, either for his youthful, feminine beauty or because they actually mistook him for a girl. He gave Epopeus a shy, innocent plea. But to no avail.
“Now don’t expect a cockerel4, little prince,” he said, “But I’m glad to be your first.”
“Please stop, you’re hurting me,” he pleaded in a small voice. But the pirate just chuckled and smacked his bum so hard, tears shot into his eyes.
“Don’t hurt me again,” Dionysos warned, his voice taking on a dangerous edge. The pirates must have noticed too because their jeering died down.
“Or what? You’re tied and fettered, what are you gonna do, sweet prince?”
“Hurt me again and you won’t live to regret it.”
“Don’t get cocky just because Akoetes said you are Apollon.”
“I am not Apollon. If I were, you’d already be dead.”
“Oh yes, I quiver in fear of your shining bow.” He laughed but only three of the others laughed with him. "I think someone needs to be brought down to earth.“ The pirate captain spread the god’s bum cheeks and positioned himself at his entrance.
Thick, red liquid flooded the deck. Epopeus drew back with a fearful cry. It was wine, of course, but at first glance it looked like blood. All fetters fell from the god’s arms, hands, and feet and Dionysos stood in all his divine magnificence. A vine spread out both ways along the top of the sail with many rich clusters of grapes hanging down from it, and a dark ivy-plant twined about the mast, blossoming with flowers and with rich berries growing on it. He covered all the thole-pins with his garlands so the ship almost looked like a garden with the sound of flutes in the distance. The pirates stared, torn between fear and awe.
"I am neither shining Apollon, nor loud-thundering Zeus, nor earth-shaking Poseidon,” Dionysos said with a voice as majestic as any one of those gods. “I am the healer of sorrow, loud-crying Dionysos whom Kadmos’ daughter Semele bore to Zeus, the best source of joy in life for mortal men. But you are not deserving of my gifts, you, who would hurt an innocent boy. Suffer my wrath!”
Dionysos didn’t particularly like transformations. They were quite taxing and reminded him of the part of his childhood he had spent as a goat kid. But there were few things he wouldn’t do for a perfect climax. He called on his divine magic, felt his essence course through his veins as it changed hair into mane, nose into snout, hands into paws and fingernails into claws. He had turned into a big, strong lion. A mighty roar sent the sailors fleeing into the stern of the ship, crowding around the helmsman who was just as pale with fear as the rest of them. Dionysos made a jump at Epopeus, seizing him and sinking his sharp teeth deep into his neck. The other pirates looked on in horror and after a moment of shock, they all jumped overboard into the gleaming sea, escaping this miserable fate. Dionysos tore flesh from bone, delighting in the dark blood spurting from the throat of his victim. Akoetes, the helmsman, was about to make the jump when the god changed back into his human form and held him back.
“Don’t jump, good man. Take courage! You have found favour with my heart. Please, bring me to Naxos, I don’t wish you ill.”
“W-Whatever you wish, Lord Dionysos, is my command!”
“Good.” Dionysos wiped the captain’s blood from his mouth. He looked over the railing at the men struggling in the water. How foolish to think they could escape his wrath. Their skin took on a swarthy hue and fins grew from their curving spines that bent their bodies into crooked shape. Their legs fused into a tail as crescent as the moon and their hands shrivelled into fins until they dove beneath the waves as dolphins, a gift to both Poseidon and Apollon5. They would live out their days hunting after fish and dolphin cunt. Content, Dionysos turned to Akoetes.
“Dispose of the body. I’ll get us some food and wine.”
The rest of the journey was enjoyable indeed and once they reached the port of Naxos, Akoetes became a favoured acolyte of the god.
FIN
Notes
1 Black wine is the ancient Greek expression for red wine. Maronian wine is wine from Maroneia in Thrace, one of the finest wine-producing regions in the ancient world.
2 Ephesos, an ancient Greek city on the coast of modern Turkey, was a centre of the slave trade.
3 Dionysos is not lying, his mother Semele is a daughter of Kadmos, the founder of Thebes in Boeotia.
4 A cockerel was a common courting gift in ancient Greece.
5 Dolphins are sacred to both Poseidon and Apollon.
Piracy and banditry provided a significant and consistent supply of slaves. Pirates and brigands would demand ransom whenever the status of their catch warranted it. Whenever ransom was not paid or not warranted, captives would be sold to a trafficker. In certain areas, piracy was practically a national specialty, as was the case with Etruscans.
The companions of Artemis were huntresses - first, last and always. They had oathed themselves to the howling dogs and the swift-footed deer. They would take no husbands - they were spoused to the wild hunt. In the polis, they were expected to bear children. There in the mountains, they belonged to themselves.
Kallisto knew her time there had come to an end. When she first came to this place, she made a vow to Artemis she would remain what the men of the polis call virginal as long as she roamed by her side. She had sworn off motherhood, yet here it was - a so-called gift from a god. She had faithfully watched the moon as it waxed and waned. Yet the blood never came, though her body ached. She was pregnant, and there was nothing more to be done but accept it.
She couldn’t bare the thought of leaving now - there were cold springs she hadn’t yet swam, rough cypresses she hadn’t embraced. She would miss the voices of the okeanids as they sang to Artemis. She would miss the smell of pine needles in the morning when they woke from their slumber. How could she depart, when it felt like her life here had scarcely begun? She hadn’t yet tired of her heart pounding in the chase, her feet leaping over the branches and stones at home on the woodland floor. Her joints weren’t yet wearied from bounding down low valleys and climbing high peaks.
But the companions of Artemis were huntresses - she would not ask them to become mothers alongside her. And humans are not meant to be alone. As weeks rolled past it became harder to conceal the truth. She would wake before dawn to bathe alone, desperate to avoid the painful conversation. It was Artemis who discovered her one morning, searching for the missing woman as Eos stretched her rosy fingers across the sky. She found Kallisto perched at the water’s edge, drying in half-light. The goddess stooped to sit near her.
“Why do you hide from us?” Artemis asked.
Kallisto flushed, embarrassed to have been caught sneaking around. Artemis had always been a midwife to mortal women. Sitting beside her now, she regretted not telling her sooner.
She pushed herself up onto her feet and pulled her tunic over herself. “I made a promise to you when I started my life here,” she said.
“You wouldn’t be the first of my companions to bear children,” Artemis replied, “you have nothing to be ashamed of.”
Kallisto turned her gaze to the goddess. “It’s not that I’m ashamed - I’m sad, and I’m scared. I’m not sure that I’m ready to give up this life. I’m not sure what to do. I used to think I’d spend the rest of my life here. Where will I go now?”
Artemis answered. “You don’t have to leave.” She stood to face Kallisto. “You can stay here, if that is what you want.”
“I won’t break my oath to you,” Kallisto replied. Artemis placed her hands on the woman’s shoulders and fixed her gaze. “Do you trust me?” she asked.
“Always,” said Kallisto.
Artemis closed her eyes, and Kallisto felt her eyelids flutter shut in unison. Sleep fell on her instantly, and when she awoke, the goddess was gone.
She felt larger, as if her body had tripled in size. She shifted to stand, and where she thought to see her naked arms bent to push herself up, she saw the arms of a bear. Her arms. She pushed off of the ground, standing on hind legs, towering far above where her vision typically rested. She lifted her hand, five-toed and clawed. In the distance, she heard the familiar sounds of delighted voices. She turned and dropped down to place all four of her limbs on the ground. Nymphs ran to her, around her, past her, stopping to press kisses to her cheek and wrap arms around her neck. At last, Artemis herself stood before her, pressed her forehead to Kallisto’s own. She departed without a word, but Kallisto knew it would not be the last time she saw her.
The men of the polis say it was a curse. But as Kallisto bounded over branches and stones, leapt after fish swimming in streams, she felt blessed. When her son was born, she taught him lessons she had learned when she was human and spoke to him in the language of a bear. When we look to the northern sky, we can see them in the stars - Kallisto and Arcas, encircling the northern star.
I had to redraw it in red :) The company stopped selling Tuscan red singly, to my deep irritation, so now I use blue for most of my sketching and only redraw the ones I really like in red.
One of these days—soon—without word, without warning, I’m going to go up in smoke.
It won’t sputter or smolder. When the blaze finally comes, it will be a conflagration. I’ll explode into flame like a dynamite crate, blackened paper and broken boards going everywhere. One of these days, the weight of the feathers and the silk will be too much. My bones will break like matchsticks, splintering, striking sparks off the edges of my cold steel core.
Two times since rehearsals started, the footlights have gone out during the Pas de trois. Back in November, it was raining all the time. The breakers kept shorting, crackling out in a shower of sparks. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, but someone had to answer for it. The new director told the stage crew that if it happened again, heads would roll. We could hear her through the door of her office, screaming into her phone. The pitch of her voice was inhumane, and directors all are crazy. They’re supposed to be temperamental, dramatic. This is different. When Madame de Sevigne raises her voice, it’s like a struck bell that won’t stop ringing. You can almost hear the frequency of her stiff, violent rage, buzzing under her skin.
Three of the corps dancers quit in one week, less than a month into the season. The ones who stayed called it madness, leaving the best company in the state, but those three were done and even their little-girl dreams of being pretty ballerinas weren’t strong enough to keep them here in the glowering presence of the Madame. They gathered up their lace and ribbons and disappeared, leaving nothing but a few loose hairpins and sequins, a few scattered feathers.
Four is the count, the steady rhythm repeating on the floor. It’s the plodding song of the metronome. We bend and grow to it, stretching and swaying—up, down, over. We fold and crouch, silent. Low. They treat me like their queen, but that’s a lie. It’s Madame who reigns over us. We are all prostrate before her.
Five nights a week, the company rehearses. And spends those rehearsals wishing it was one of our days off. I’m the girl who never murmurs or complains. The others take my silence as indifference. They make assumptions that I’m cutthroat and hungry. That I take all the good things for myself, but that’s only an illusion. I’m just as caught, as tangled-up as the rest of them.
Six times, the Madame has made an example of someone, calling them to stand apart and take their punishment. Six times, I’ve stood silently in the crowd and wished that it was me. Sometimes, if you have to watch, the humiliation is too much. It’s better to bow your head and take the blame. If you can just save all the scorn and the reproach for yourself, sometimes it means that everyone else is spared.
Seven is the number of pounds that Marianne Porter has to lose if she wants to keep her spot. When Madam de Sevigne told her that, in front of everyone, the rest of the swans turned and angled their faces to the floor while I stood apart, with my back straight and my head up. Marianne didn’t argue or protest. She stared greedily at me, the body that Madame holds sacred. The one they’re all supposed to covet, aspire to and emulate. Later, I found Marianne alone in the dressing room, drawing X’s on her stomach and thighs with a marker. I could see her spine through the taut, uncomplaining veil of her skin.
Eight is when we stop for the evening, if the Madame is pleased and the rehearsal goes well and the stars align. We never stop at eight.
Nine is the number of circles Madame draws in her black choreography notebook before turning the page. I’ve seen her backstage, or else sitting stiffly behind the desk in her office, drawing her vicious little circles, making her little notes. She doesn’t glance up or look around, lost in the magic of her book. I think it’s where she keeps our souls.
Ten is the number of toes I have. It’s an ordinary number, but every night, I wonder. I slide them out of my pointe shoes, and it always seems for a moment that the shank and the toe box have molded them together like the gnarled feet of a bird. The other dancers gasp and wince. They cry noiseless tears until the ache stops and the numbness creeps back in. They bend their heads to hide the pain, until their whole bodies look pale and distorted, like fairytale creatures. I think that she’s bewitched them into swans but left me half a princess—a feathered girl made of skin, muscle, bone.
Eleven is when we stop for the evening, since we never stop at eight. The lights flick out and the music trails off. Everything has to stop sometime.
Twelve o’clock is soft and full of shadows. The building is empty, echoing. Still.
The only one left now is Madame, sitting grimly behind her desk.
She didn’t take my voice. My silence is legendary, but she’s not the reason I don’t speak. The other dancers stare around, craven and wide-eyed like she’s fixed their mouths, filled them up with feathers.
My own voice is still right where it belongs.
The door is cracked, and when I push my way into the office, she doesn’t look surprised. When she asks what I want, I tell her that the corps is frightened of her, that more might leave if she doesn’t start using some compassion, or at least some tact.
“Thank you for bringing it to my attention,” she says. “I appreciate your input, but really, the state of the corps is not your concern. If you’d like something to worry over, you ought to be thinking about your arabesques.”
She says is briskly, like the words are prerecorded, before going back to her nasty little book, listing off our flaws and weaknesses and our faults, recipes for destruction. All the perfect, constant circles.
Alone in the hall, I understand that my visit hasn’t made a difference. I didn’t expect it to.
The swans are useless, mute, and I can’t make them into real girls. They might wish for protection, for rescue, but they don’t love me. They’d burn me like a witch if they could, and maybe the secret to being the best is that you don’t mind too much when your feet hurt or other people want to burn you.
The cavernous space behind the stage is cluttered, all ropes and wires and dangling sandbags. There’s ancient wood paneling peeling up from the floor, water dripping from places the maintenance crew were supposed to patch. I wind my way through the boxes and the pulleys, carrying one of the cygnet’s tutus from the dressing room. The feathers are scratchy and coarse against my arms, much coarser than they look.
This is the one elemental truth of a swan princess. The truth of Madame.
Without ceremony, I toss the skirt over the rickety fuse box, and trip the breaker.
the myth of persephone is about the trauma of the separation of mothers and daughters by marriage and this is the hill i will die on
To be clear I’m not against retellings that reinterpret the relationship between Hades and Persephone and present it as consensual and healthy– I do think there’s something incredibly powerful about looking at a story that’s been passed down to us through millennia about a girl being kidnapped and raped and saying “no. No, that’s not the kind of story I want to hear, that’s not the kind of story I want to tell, and that’s certainly not the kind of story I want my daughters to grow up on.” (Although I think it’s disappointing that these are now the only sorts of Persephone retellings we get, and at this point it’s really not a particularly revolutionary take, given how often it’s been done.)
But I also think we do a great disservice to the women of the ancient world by not remembering how this story, in that form, mirrored their very real pain. I’ve been thinking recently about how we can tell that women participated in the formation of their culture’s folklore because women’s trauma is embedded in it. (In Greek terms, the stories of Leto and Alcmene very clearly come out of women’s traumatic experiences with childbirth, and there are elements of women’s traumatic experiences of sexual assault embedded in, for example, the stories of Daphne or Callisto or Artemis and Actaeon) And the story of Persephone comes out of women’s experiences of being permanently separated from their mothers and daughters at marriage. (See also this postfrom@gardenvarietycrime.)
For an ancient woman sending her daughter off to be married, knowing that she will see her only rarely and that the odds of death in childbirth were high, Persephone meant something. For an ancient girl leaving her mother and her entire world for a man she may never have met knowing the same, Persephone meant something. I do think a lot of the conflation of death and marriage in the ancient world comes out of this: that a girl is dead to her mother and her family whether she leaves them to go to a husband’s house or the house of Hades. Maybe it’s a consolation to know that someone else has done this before you, to know that a goddess once lost her daughter and a goddess once lost her mother the same way you are losing yours. And that they survived it.
Essentially I think we need to remember that this myth (like all myths and all folklore) is not necessarily entirely the product of men, that women’s voices and women’s trauma remain embedded in it despite all of our written sources being men’s tellings of the story. And when we retell it we risk losing those voices if we are not careful and if we dismiss the myth as it survives today as solely men’s version of the story.
This myth from my culture teaches us how strongly mothers love their children and how marriage without the consent of the daughter and the mother (generally the important female figures in the family) can bring catastrophy - because women had power and nothing is more powerful than the wrath of a wronged mother. OP’s take isn’t hypothetical. THIS IS HOW THE TALE IS INTERPRETED IN THE CULTURE. Millions of Greek women have been in arranged marriages and this has only stopped recently. This tale gave strength to my female ancestors and the trauma they had to endure. I won’t have any of “this is a myth made entirely for men“ bullshit.
(I don’t have any problem with the retellings, of course. People can get inspired by anything they want and they can write whatever they want).
Yes finally someone says it! To be frank. This is the version of the myth us Greeks are taught. The name of the myth is “Η αρπαγή της Περσεφόνης” which translates too “The kidnapping/taking of Pershephone.”
Arranged marriage where the daughter had to go miles away from her family (and would be lucky to see them once a year!) only started to stop at our grandparents time. Many of our grandparents are in arranged mariagges.
The taking of Pershephone is a myth about the strong bond of a mother and her daughter, and how she took power in her hands. And I am thankful to my mother and grandmothers for teaching it to me.
And this myth still affects today’s women!
It’s the custom in Greece to name your children after your parents. First children take the father’s parents name, and the second son and second daughter can be named after the mother’s parents.
But when my mother gave birth to me, the first daughet, she chose to name me after her mother because, and I quote: “I re-read an old mythology book when I was pregnant with you, and I remembered the myth of Demeter and Pershephone. And I thought that I didn’t have to sit do what the men want, because you are my daughet, and I want to honor my mother first.”
What I try to say is that, retalling can be nice, but the original myth was supposed to empower women. And it still does today.
tI’ll always advocate for understanding the cultural context in which myths were created, but I’m also not surprised it evolved in the way it did. I would like to bring up a few points that I don’t often see addressed in conversations such as these. The first being that while it’s important to understand a myth’s origins, ultimately these stories have been about dealing with fears and issues present in their society of origin. The evolution of Demeter and Persephone’s story happened because some aspects of the myth don’t really translate into a modern world the way some of the more modern retellings do. I’m not saying arranged marriages have vanished off the face of the earth, but with modern technology and a different social climate contact between mothers and children have become much easier even half a world away. Thus, the fear of never seeing one’s daughter again after marriage isn’t quite as potent as it would have been in ancient times.
So the original myth, for many, became ‘obsolete’ for lack of a better term.
Furthermore, the Abduction of Persephone is an empowering story, but while it’s not made for men, it is very much made for the mother. There’s a reason why it’s called “The Hymn to Demeter”, it’s her story. Demeter’s the one who overcomes her trauma, her actions result in her reunion with Persephone. Persephone, who is every bit as traumatized as her mother, doesn’t quite get the triumph that Demeter does, and has just as much agency at the end of her tale than she had at the beginning, which is very little.
I’d also like to point out that most modern interpretations aren’t just an attempt to make the romance between Hades and Persephone more palatable. They’re depicting a very different form of trauma than the original, which is something that I don’t see acknowledged often in surrounding commentary. The main difference being that instead of having Demeter’s plight be the driving force of the narrative, Persephone herself is the focal point.
Most of these retellings that I’ve seen haven’t solely been about actually liking the person you’re married to, though it’s certainly a bonus, it’s been about choice.Persephone’s choice. This evolution sprung from a culture that’s very tired of the insistence that young women are helpless, and claiming the only merits these retellings have is how revolutionary they get is a bit of a disservice. Several, if not most, retellings will bring up and address Persephone’s own feeling of helplessness and desire to be heard. The original myth is about the conflicting wills of the mother and father, but the wishes of the daughter in question aren’t really addressed, and retellings reflect that.
It may be controversial to some, but the modern interpretations in which there is notable friction between Demeter and Persephone tackles concerns many children have about their parents undermining their attempts to grow up, and while I don’t think one version is more valid than the other, I think there’s a bit more nuance to the myth’s evolution than simply a pursuit of a better romance.
Again, the original myth and the message it sent is important, and should be remembered, I also really hope people understand that retelling the story is still very much about empowering women and looking into the side of the tale that hasn’t been explored as much in the original, and not just making Hades look better.
In a warren of crumbling buildings and desperate people called the Old City, there stands a hospital with cinderblock walls which echo with the screams of the poor souls inside. In the hospital, there is a woman. Her hair, once blonde, hangs in tangles down her back. She doesn’t remember why she’s in such a terrible place-just a tea party long ago, and long ears, and blood… Then, one night, a fire at the hospital gives the woman a chance to escape, tumbling out of the hole that imprisoned her, leaving her free to uncover the truth about what happened to her all those years ago. Only something else has escaped with her. Something dark. Something powerful. And to find the truth, she will have to track this beast to the very heart of the Old City, where the rabbit waits for his Alice. ★★★★★
Which villains or monsters deserve an origin story?
I remember reading The Odyssey in high school and Circe was just a minor character portrayed as somewhat of a villain, which made me want to know more about her (naturally). Then Madeline Miller came out with CIRCE and I finally had the origin story I was craving!
Now if only I could find a good Medusa story (or re-telling). I would be ALL over that (and if you have any recommendations, I’d love to hear them)
