Dream of Arion
Demeter glared up at Polybotes, the lumbering barbarian that had come to her isle of Kōs in search of rape and plunder. Her diaphanous gown of green and gold was swaying along with her lustrous dark hair against the baleful wind heralding the Gigant’s arrival. A great flight of nesting sea birds were decrying this piratical invader, struggling against the warring impulses to protect their eggs or flee. Even the sea itself was writhing against the approach of this most villainous of the Gigants, the angry waves thrashing against his serpentine legs. Demeter stepped forward, onto the great stones that walled off her home from the sea, placing her immortal body directly in the path of the invading beast. “You will not have her!” the goddess of harvests and the sacred law declared. Though free from death, as all Olympians were, still Demeter fought against the growing terror swelling inside; the Gigants had found many tortures far worse than mortal death in their war against the younger gods.
Despite her efforts to shield little Cora, Demeter could sense her daughter moving forward, as though to join the battle. As she had so many times during the little one’s brief immortal life, Demeter once again pushed her daughter back, away from approaching danger. Instead, as Polybotes lumbered up from the Aegean waves, the rolls of his blubberous body streaming with sweat and the salty sea, Demeter placed herself once more into a mother’s role: to face the threat to what she treasures… alone.
“Where is your Greek hospitality?” Polybotes demanded. His enormous hand, large enough to grasp the largest of trees, moved along his dripping body, up between his serpentine legs. The Gigant stood knee-deep in the once-pristine waters of the rocky beach, fur-like blonde hair covering every fold of his salt-stained bulk. His green and broken teeth, still carrying the torn shreds of his last meal, curled into a lustful leer at the sight of young Olympian flesh. “I am a weary traveler in need of comfort.”
“You are no stranger or honest traveler,” Demeter snarled, shuddering against the bestial invader’s insinuation. Like their mistress, the trees surrounding her beach and the very sea itself recoiled at the possibility of Polybotes’ desecration. The goddess raised her golden scythe in work-stained hands. “You and your misbegotten kind are invaders! You have burned your way into our lands, slaughtering our mortals and desecrating our cities, all in the name of avenging the elder gods! You try to destroy everything we younger gods have created! You will find no ‘comfort’ here!” Dark storm clouds, approaching from the horizon, rumbled in agreement.
Kōs, her perfect isle, was meant to be free of the stain of men. The island had been one of Demeter’s great joys, an example of all she could accomplish without the burden of men. Lush vegetation flowed across the land in multicolored waves. Whole flocks of colorful seabirds make a colorful adornment. No roads or buildings marred the serenity of Kōs’ gentle valleys. The island was flawless in its chaste purity. Even the wine-dark sea, upon which piratical men sailed their ugly ships, was kept away by a ring of great stones. Not a single blemish of man’s touch showed; not until the arrival of the disgusting Gigant.
Although their duties in the mortal world occupied much of their time, still Demeter found time to enjoy their sanctuary with her daughter, especially since Cora’s forced marriage. Now, with only half the year to spend with each other, Demeter had found their retreats especially important, rekindling the unbreakable bound between mother and daughter. Kōs, then, had been the most logical place to retreat from the invading Northmen.
Overriding Cora’s objections, Demeter had spirited them both to this little corner of the world at the first sighting of the barbarous Gigants. The goddess of the living world had already lost her beloved daughter to one lecherous mating, little Cora now being forced to spend half the year in Hades’ sunless realm. Demeter would not risk losing their remaining time to another brutish kidnapper. Indeed, there could be no doubt that Cora’s presence, her divine gift of everlasting life, had been the beacon that drew Polybotes’ lustful eyes away from the siege of Olympus and to this corner of the civilized world.
If there must be a victim to Polybotes’ hideous lust, though, it would not be gentle Cora; the harvest mother would be the sacrifice. Cora, as soft as a spring flower’s scent, tried once again to move beside her mother. The folds of her violet skirt swirl in the growing wind, as seemingly alive as was the lavender that adorned her raven hair. Her marble skin, still recovering from the cold months in the Underworld, reflected the day’s light. Polybotes stared at the young goddess with drooling lust, hungering for her immortal flesh and power.
“No, little one,” Demeter insisted, pushing the girl back. “For Hades, you are a queen. Here, you are my daughter.” As the goddess of life resurgent, Cora was a beacon of hope for the living world. Men yearned for her, worshipped her, sought her. Men, and even lesser creatures. Now that she sat upon Hades’ ebony throne, Cora had become even more powerful, more radiant, more desired. She was the promise of eternal vitality.
“Maybe I’ll take my comfort with you both,” Polybotes leered, his yellowed eyes taking in the flawless bodies of the harvest-mother and her flowering daughter. A droplet of his ardor dribbled off one great tusk to land on the Gigant’s swollen paunch.
Demeter heard Cora gaging at the thought. The goddess held her golden scythe at the ready. “You will not touchmy daughter!”
Polybotes roared his mocking laughter, the island itself shuddering at the noxious sound. “The mother has fire!” the Northman rejoiced, wading towards shore. “Perhaps you should bear my seed instead of the usurper’s!”
“You’ll die first.” Demeter swung her golden scythe in a great arc, slashing its shining blade at the Giant’s bulging gut. But Polybotes caught the tool mid-swing and pulled the goddess in, using his other massive arm to enfold Demeter’s lithe body. She desperately twisted against the rolling folds of Polybotes’ bulk, but to no avail. Her fruitless struggle, the writhing of her divine flesh, only further aroused his lust. The Gigant let his long tongue snake out, tearing the front of her gown and running across Demeter’s exposed breasts, leaving a trail of noxious drool in its wake. The goddess roared in fury and revulsion, jamming her knee into Polybotes’ crotch. In response, the Gigant hissed his painful outrage and hurled the harvest mother onto the surrounding stones.
Polybotes triumphantly took Demeter’s golden scythe in both hands and flexed, snapping the farming tool in half and tossing the broken pieces aside. “You will submit,” he snarled, rage and lust spilling from his blood-stained yellow eyes. The Gigant threshed up to the stones protecting Kōs, but suddenly stopped, looking down in surprise. The sand beneath him, nearly hidden in the writing waves, was gathering around his serpentine legs. It reached up and grasped at him. Some unknown force from beneath the living earth seized the repulsive Gigant and pulled, as though to drag the monstrous Northman down into endless darkness. In confusion, Polybotes struggled against the pull of the Underworld. He looked around for a cause, for some enemy he could defeat. His gaze at last fell on little Cora, standing upon the largest boulder.
Demeter saw her daughter standing tall with a single arm raised, her onyx eyes flashing. The goddess’ hand looked as though she were pulling down on something, a motion mirrored by the earth as it pulled at Polybotes.
The Gigant twisted against the terrible power taking hold of his very soul. He grabbed a nearby stone, one of the many great boulders lining the island, and hurled it at Cora. The young goddess seemed unaware of the incoming missile, her hand still pulling; unaware, or uncaring. Instinctively, Demeter leapt, shielding little Cora against the boulder with her own immortal body. The goddess of seasons fell to the ground, golden ichor erupting from her mouth. Cora gasped in surprise and fear, kneeling to try and comfort her wounded mother.
“Run,” Demeter gasped against the pain. The mother of harvests could not die, but could suffer the unending pain of death.
Polybotes began climbing the great stones, his unrequited lust bubbling from his tusked mouth. Cora’s gaze shifted between her pain-wracked mother and the approaching barbarian. Resolve settled then in her midnight eyes, and she made no move to abandon Demeter. Even through the pain, the harvest mother felt a wrench of suffering at the glimmer of fear in her daughter’s face; the knowledge of suffering, humiliation, and subjugation by the odious Gigant. Her expression shifted to wonder, though, as her eyes suddenly looked past Polybotres, out onto the stormy sea.
The gathering wind stilled for a moment, as though collecting itself at the edge of Kōs’ outstretched arms. The wine-dark sea retreated, away from Polybotes and the stones, out towards the approaching storm clouds. Then, drawing itself up into a tremendous wall, the water surged forward. A charging blast of air, leaping ahead of this colossal tide, lifted Demeter and Cora back into the safety of the trees as the sea itself galloped towards land. The great wave rose and crested, far above the lumbering Gigant who dared to threaten these goddesses. Atop this foaming steed rode one of the greatest Olympians, his pale skin a perfect match to the seething foam of his mighty wave. The god’s long, black hair danced in the mighty wind as his great tidal mount reared in joy at the arrival of its master. In his hands, the lord of the ocean held a shining silver trident, a triple-bladed spear that crackled with all the power of the raging sea.
Shaking the earth with his roar, reducing every boulder to a tide of fine white sand, Poseidon leapt, letting both waves of water and sand crash onto Polybotes before hurling his silver trident.
***
After Cora’s wedding feast late last year, once the lords and ladies of Olympus were deep in their cups and entertainments, Demeter took her daughter aside. The two wandered into one of Olympus’ palatial gardens. The mother goddess of earth and farm had taken heavily to the flowing nectar that day, almost in mourning over Cora’s union with Hades. During the wedding, Demeter had spoken only passingly to her fellow immortals, instead spending much of the celebration wandering alone amongst the marble halls of Olympus. Towards the end, as blushing evening had drawn her curtain, Demeter told the newly-crowned queen of the Underworld the story of her first, and perhaps only, love.
In all their time together, Demeter had shared with her daughter all the tales of her immortal life. While tending to the living world, she had told Cora of the war against the Titans, and how she had aided her brother Zeus in vanquishing the elder gods. Demeter told her daughter of helping humans bring life back to the world and teaching them planting and harvesting. She told Cora of the forging of her golden scythe by her uncles, the Cyclopes. Demeter even spoke of the absurdity of men and their obsession with mating and conquest; two words, the mother of reaping argued, with the same meaning. In all their long conversations, though, the goddess of divine justice never told her daughter of the time before Zeus’ great rebellion, of Demeter’s time imprisoned by her father. This changed on the night of Cora’s wedding when, at last, the mother told her daughter of what happened in that before-time.
In a time now past, the girl that would become goddess of field and orchard had been imprisoned by her tyrannical father in a great grassy sea. “Immortals cannot die,” she said in a voice almost lost in the evening breeze. “But we can be imprisoned. So it was for any threats to your grandfather. The Cyclopes and Hecatoncheires were imprisoned beneath the living earth. His brothers were banished to the corners of the world. His children, we were each imprisoned in a world of our own. Mine was an empty grassland that stretched beyond every horizon.”
Demeter paused at a long, wide bed of green roses, delicately flowing amidst the calm swirl of the cooling air. In the center of the roses, very close but separated, were two purple hyacinths. “I spent many eternities in that great green sea,” Demeter said through unshed tears grown from an older seed than her daughter’s marriage. “As long and hard as I ran, I could never find the end of that lonely steppe. I spent an eternity exploring my vast, open prison. I did not mind the vast stretch of quiet nothing though; at the time, I knew nothing but my unending isolation.
“And then, one day, I was not alone.” Demeter’s eyes, clouded through Cora’s wedding, brightened just slightly when she spoke of that meeting. “Whence he came, I did not know, though I presumed he was another victim of my father’s cruelty. One day, I was running alone as I always did, ignorant of my loneliness. And then, he was standing there, on a swell of the grassy sea.” Demeter’s gaze become lost then, passing back, past the many heartaches to that distant, innocent time. “He looked at me with midnight eyes that pulled at my entire being,” she said then, a note of longing buried deeply. “I realized then, in that moment: I had been alone. Now I had Poseidon.”
Demeter said this with a light touch to her heart. The hand at her chest lingered as the goddess of the fertile fields remained silent for a time, her eyes lost and her fingertips tracing across the dark fabric of her gown. Poseidon had not attended the wedding, of course; the lord of the ocean depths was often absent from Olympus, claiming that his duties beneath the wine-dark sea required his constant presence. In fact, Poseidon never appeared on Olympus, not when Demeter and Cora were present.
“That first moment,” Demeter finally continued, “that first sight of him… He was tall, standing proudly, even defiantly atop the tallest hill. He was dark, not of flesh, but of spirit. Yet he shined with a radiance his flowing dark mane could not obscure. It was as though he was all still on the surface, yet thrashing and violent beneath. He looked at me coolly at first, but also with… something.” Even after so many eternities, the goddess of divine mysteries still held a puzzled expression at any consideration of Poseidon’s mind.
“I remember being just a little afraid of him,” Demeter recalled, still staring past the flowers. “He said nothing, just stared at me. I do not know why, but I ran. I ran away from him just as fast as I could.” Her breathing increased then, when she said, “He chased me.” Poseidon had pursued her, struggled to catch her, made no secret of his desire for her. But in the long eternity of their imprisonment, Demeter would never let him catch her. She laughed, just slightly, at the memory of that long chase. Her eyes grew ever-more distant as she continued her story, how she had allowed Poseidon to chase her all over their great steppe. Sometimes she would slow, just enough to allow him closer, only to laugh and dart away. “It was the chase I loved,” the harvest mother admitted ruefully to her daughter, “the chase I desired.
“We passed a nearly endless eternity like that. Poseidon pursuing and I pursued. He never admitted to anyone, but I think that, for the only time in his immortal life, he was happy. He loved the pursuit as much as I.” A cloud seemed to pass over them, in their perfect garden, as Demeter then recalled how their time together had ended, as all love must end. “And then our brother freed us,” she said darkly with an inscrutable glance towards the boisterous Zeus.
“There came the day when I slowed and did not dart away again. I allowed him closer, until we stood in front of each other, looking into one another’s eyes. We spent an age, lost in one another. And then Zeus freed us from our prison. Our little brother needed allies in his rebellion against our father. We had to join him; Zeus gave us no choice but to join. We younger gods overthrew our elders and assumed our new places as masters of the world. Poseidon journeyed out, into his cold, dark realm, and I went into the fields. We two Olympians, who had been closer than the tide and the beach, were forever separated by our duties.”
Demeter straightened then, and wiped away her eyes. “We have our duties, after all. Mine lie in the field and orchard, his beneath the waves.” She glanced then at her daughter. “Yours are now in the Underworld. Our desires must come second to our duties.”
***
At Kōs’ barrier, the stony wall separating garden from sea, Poseidon’s great wave came crashing down, striking with all the force of the endless sea. Demeter and Cora looked on from the safety of the wood line, gently swept there by Poseidon’s power. Like the goddesses, Polybotes was lifted off his serpentine feet, but not gently. He was pummeled by the ferocity of the twin waves of water and sand. The force of Poseidon’s opening attack slammed the Gigant from two sides, far from where Cora and Demeter laid. The barbarian tried to rise but, before he could, Poseidon was there, thrusting down with his silver trident. The three-bladed spear slashed through the air, lunging for the beast’s heart, but became imbedded in the sand instead as Polybotes rolled away, the speed of his dodge belying his massive bulk.
The lord of the crashing tide yanked his weapon free of the sand and stood tall amidst the restless waves of Kōs’ sundered beach. Holding his silver trident at the ready, Poseidon’s pale skin seemed to glow in the unfamiliar radiance of the sun. His long, dark hair flowed as freely in the surface breeze as it did amidst the deep currents of his kingdom. His eyes, the same deep blue as the waters of his realm, flashed in a barely-controlled rage at the sight of the wounded Demeter, the control failing altogether at the frightened Cora. The earth-shaking god roared and spun his silver trident, leaping once more to the attack.
Poseidon called back the retreating sea, swamping Polybotes even as he spun his silver trident in a great, underhand loop, the three divinely-sharp tips slashing the Gigant from naval to chin. Dark, ichorous blood gushed out, but the Northman paid no heed to the wound, instead swinging wide a great, fleshy fist that slammed Poseidon to the ground. The sea-lord did not pause, instead rolling along the beach and twisting, letting his trident sing over his head in a silvery arc and cutting another great gash in Polybotes’ shoulder. The Gigant, in response, lurched at Poseidon, throwing his injured shoulder against the master of tide and wind, catching the Olympian and sending him skipping out into the low waves.
Poseidon used the momentum of the attack to roll into the resurgent tide, disappearing beneath the obedient waves. Polybotes leapt into the sea as well, but could not spot his enemy. Instead, the sea lord erupted from the blood-stained waters behind the invader, thrusting his silver trident once again. This time, though, the barbarian was not struck; he reached out, deflecting Poseidon’s strike with one hand and catching the sea lord with the other, enfolding the Olympian’s entire head in one hairy fist. Polybotes lifted his enemy up and slammed him back down, again and again beating the younger god’s body against the unrelenting earth as the sea was forced to retreat. Poseidon tried to resist, tried beating and pulling at the hairy paw that held him, but to no avail. Polybotes crushed Poseidon’s immortal body against the fine white sand of the beach, tossing aside the silver trident, symbol of the ocean’s power. Stripped of his weapon, naked and vulnerable, Poseidon was dragged against the few remaining rocks at the edge of the fearful woods, the Gigant punching again and again at the sea lord’s once-flawless flesh with a massive, bestial fist. At long last, Polybotes reached back one last time and hurled the sea lord as one would hurl a discus. Poseidon’s limp body skipped along the waves before sinking down into his dark realm.
Triumphant, Polybotes turned once more to the goddesses.
***
The wedding feast had ended, and the preparations completed for Cora’s formal journey into the Underworld. Demeter watched all this silently, unable to hide from her daughter the deep conflict raging within her heart. Finally, with all traditions and obligations finished, the young goddess of rebirth made ready to depart. Even as she placed one slippered foot upon Hades’ ebony chariot, Cora paused. Standing near a secluded alcove of the great throne room, Demeter was waving her daughter over.
“Before you begin your married life,” her mother said once joined by Cora, “there is one secret more you need to know.” The ascendant queen said nothing in response, waiting.
“Although his duties required his almost constant presence, and we saw each other little, Poseidon did return to Olympus when he heard about my pregnancy.” Rumor had reached down from Olympus’ shining halls, reaching even the sea-lord’s realm. Demeter had spent a night with Zeus and was now with child. Although the whole world acknowledged the paternity of Demeter’s child, she and Poseidon shared a secret, one he needed resolved.
Is it mine? he had asked her with only a sparing glance at her swelling belly. The lord of the ocean depths had confronted her in the great throne room of the younger gods, his stormy face clouded even more by his anger and despair.
Demeter had stepped forward, her soft eyes filled with sympathy. She drew them aside, into an alcove removed from the great hall in which the younger gods drank and discussed their immortal affairs. It was in that same secluded spot that Demeter shared with Cora that secret. The goddess of divine justice had tried to apologize to the god of the shaking earth. Zeus will be the father of my child, she had told him, Zeus must be the father.
I don’t understand, Poseidon had said, forcing his deep voice even lower. After all these eternities, all the times you rebuffed me, yet continued with your… encouragement. You finally come to me, we finally… His eyes drifted then out of the alcove, towards the far end of the hall, the semi-circle of marble and golden thrones upon which sat the Olympians. At the center of the arrayed thrones, in the two raised above the others as a reminder of their place as first among equals, sat Zeus and Hera, the rulers of the world. Of all the gods you could have chosen, why him? Poseidon had asked. Why name him the father?
This question had hung in the air before Demeter, her eyes full. It must be him, was the only answer Demeter could give.
I don’t understand, Poseidon had said then. If you have no feelings for Zeus, then why him? You will not marry him, nor become some bound concubine. The lord of the tides and the stormy seas had taken Demeter’s hand and rested it against his broad, chiseled chest, letting her feel the pounding of a heart that sang only for her.
Zeus is the king of Olympus and ruler of the world, she had told Poseidon. His name carries power… and protection.
He will never be a father to your child, Poseidon had argued. I could…
Could you? was all Demeter had said. The three brothers that had led them to victory over the Titans: Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades, were all the same. They each ruled their realms and wielded their power. This was their first and only true love. The women that came and went through their immortal lives could never be more than passing amusements. Poseidon ruled the sea, but his dominion ended at the sandy beach; Zeus reigned over everything beneath the sky. His name could protect a child. All this Demeter had said while looking into the endless pools of Poseidon’s gaze.
Poseidon had then taken Demeter’s hand in his, the Olympian’s grip as gentle and comforting as sea foam. I would still have a wife, he had whispered to her. I would still try to be a father…
The goddess of divine law shook her head at the memory of the proposal she never let him finish. “It can never be…” Demeter then turned and stepped away, letting her daughter leave to spend her time with Hades, in the darkness beneath the earth.
***
Though the wounded Demeter tried to pull her back, Cora stood, glaring defiance at the monstrous Polybotes. Power spilled out from her onyx eyes, and her small hands clenched as the queen of the Underworld, the goddess of life, death, and rebirth, gathered all the powers that were hers to command. Once again, Demeter pulled at her daughter, ready to place her immortal flesh, wounded as it was, between little Cora and the dangerous world. The harvest mother tried to do this, but paused. Something had changed.
For the first time, Demeter did not see little Cora, goddess of youthful joy and the flowering of spring. Nor did the mother see just her daughter, with perpetually-skinned knees and hair in desperate need of combing. Demeter did not see a delicate violet flower amidst a sea of weeds, with petals just beginning to open. Little Cora was gone.
Instead, a dark goddess stood in Cora’s place. The dread queen of the Underworld, guardian and judge of righteous spirits, with eyes of burning onyx, stood tall to battle the barbarian Gigant. The goddess, with hair of black fire swirling in the growing wind, summons]ed her great power to destroy this malignant invader of her mother’s garden. Demeter let her hand slip down, letting go, at last, of her innocent daughter. Instead, the goddess of reaping and preserving held up her golden scythe, offering it to Cora; no, not Cora, Demeter realized. The older goddess released her broken tool with a trembling hand, letting all the love and power of mother and daughter pass between them in that single moment of acceptance.
The queen of the Underworld turned, holding high the power of the earth to merge with her own, and faced the monstrous Gigant. She held out her free hand and Poseidon’s silver trident burst from the seething waves, spinning through the air, and joyously came to rest in her commanding grip. The dark goddess leveled a dark gaze upon her parents’ enemy then, and wielding the golden scythe in one hand and sliver trident in the other, stepped forward. Cora no longer, her mother decided, but Persephone.
The whole world began to shake. The living earth heaved and cracked as fissures opened under the waves, the burning rage of the Underworld boiling up into the sea around Kōs. Great clouds of gas erupted, turning the island’s secluded waters into a frothing, vengeful cauldron. Polybotes looked about and, for the first time in his barbarous life, he felt fear. The air around Persephone was just as angry as the sea, belying the calm, cold determination on the face of the queen of the Underworld. The sands of the beach gathered up by the goddess’ angry wind, joining with the roiling water of the harbor. Together, all the elements of the world formed divine weapons, great spears and whips and things unnamed. With these, the goddess of death and rebirth lashed against the blubberous body of the cringing Northman. Again and again Persephone striked, crisscrossing Polybotes’ unwashed form with burning, bleeding wounds. The Gigant screamed and sobbed and begged, desperately trying to shield himself with his enormous hands. The goddess life resurgent and judge of all that lived watched this without the barest hint of compassion. Instead, in response to her command, the living earth reached up and pulled Polybotes’ hands away, letting the wind and surf flay the flesh from the sobbing monster’s face and back and groin.
Persephone released the Gigant for a moment and he tried to flee, but the living earth once again reached up and grasped his writhing limbs. The goddess cut the air with a sweeping arc of Demeter’s golden scythe, imbedding the tool into Polybotes’ side and forcing the Gigant to his serpentine knees in agony. Persephone then reached out with the living earth and golden scythe, bending Polybotes’ back and forcing the barbarous intruder to present his chest to her. With no change to her dark expression, Persephone buried Poseidon’s silver trident into his gasping chest. The bringer of destruction waited a moment, staring deeply into Polybotes’ dread-filled eyes, before wrenching her weapons free and pulling with them the Northman’s beating heart.
Polybotes vomited an ichorous flood. He weakly glanced up, unfocused eyes looking for any sign of hope. Instead, the unrelenting queen of the Underworld, daughter of divine justice and wrathful tides says, “See you soon.”
***
Their secluded beach was slowly restoring itself, though it would never again be the paradise Demeter had so loved. Poseidon, still mending his immortal body from the battle, had commanded the sea to drag Polybotes’ carcass out, to be fed upon by the creatures of his realm. The trees had retreated from the battle, unwilling to return to a place of such horror. Demeter had been reaching out with her power to help them take new root. The large rocks that once marked the border of island and sea had been destroyed, replaced by a thick beach of fine white sand. Even the sea itself still foamed, still turned amidst the gases released from beneath the living earth. This purified the waters of Polybotes’ pollution, but carried a hint of the terrible power unleashed here. Persephone had joined with her parents in their purification of Kōs. Still beautiful, Demeter thought, but now the beauty of power, of triumph, not of innocence.
“Poseidon,” Demeter called out as the sea lord made ready to depart. He turned and glanced back over his broad shoulder, unable to face her eyes. The harvest mother slowly approached, as one might a skittish horse. Her diaphanous gown was still torn and stained, and did little to hide her divine flesh. Her exposed body, even damaged, clearly made her presence even more painful for the god of the unquiet ocean. “Thank you,” Demeter said. “Thank you for coming.”
Poseidon shrugged. “How could I not?”
Demeter looked over to where their daughter was encouraging the island back to life. The younger goddess was making a point of appearing to ignore them despite remaining close enough to hear everything. “Zeus didn’t.”
“Zeus’ interests are elsewhere,” the sea lord replied, looking towards Olympus. “The Gigants lay siege to his mountain.”
“You are of Olympus too,” Demeter pointed out, trying to grab hold of his eyes. “You could have fought there, perhaps you even should have fought there. Still, you came here.”
He said nothing, so she took another step forward. Her bare feet drank in the comforting warmth of the white sand, mixing with the welcoming cool of the changing tide. Her body found comfort in this, just as her warming heart reached out to fan the flame buried deep within the sea god’s cold chest. Her hand raised of its own accord, the barest tips of her fingers reaching Poseidon’s pale, well-muscled back. Before she could fully place a gentle, hopeful touch upon his bruised, powerful frame, the sea lord stepped into the waves that reached towards their master. “Poseidon,” Demeter called out again.
The god of the oceans turns back, at last fully facing the goddess that held his heart. The sea gathered around his powerful form, leaving his torso and head exposed to the air and its burning fragrance of flowers, life, and hope. “There is still a war to fight,” he declared with a deep, booming voice filled with all the passion he had worked for an age to suppress. For the first time since their separation, a single drop of salty water falls from Poseidon’s eye to join with that of his domain. “There are still other Gigants to be defeated.”
“And after?” she asked, the hand that had touched Poseidon now resting against her own surging heart.
The barest hint of a simile danced across Poseidon’s full lips, the first since that time, long ago, when he shared a happy imprisonment with his great love. Then the sea lord leapt, arching his flawless body through the light of a perfect day, and dived back into his cold, watery realm. Demeter remained for a time on their beach, at the boundary between their duties. She stood there, looking into the shifting tides.
End