Back in the great days of Greece, before the Gods and Goddesses of Mount Olympus were replaced by the more 'modern' of religions, there lived a beautiful mortal. Actually, according to many other myths, there lived many young, beautiful mortals (most of whom suffered a terrible fate due to the intensity of their beauty), but in this particular story, we will be focusing on only one of the possible thousands. Their name was Wisteria. Wisteria was so beautiful, they appealed to members of both the male and female variety. This, however, did not bother people none too much, for no one knew to what gender class Wisteria belonged.
When one asked a male what he found so attractive about Wisteria, he would immediately reply, in a typical masculine fashion, "Their body." It was true: the mortal's body had all the right curves a man generally looked for in a woman, so callously overlooking the important part (the personality). However, when a woman was asked such a question, she'd make sheep eyes in Wisteria's general direction before replying in a sugar-laced voice, "The hair and eyes." This was also true: Wisteria's curled dark hair was cut short, short as most men's, and their eyes were as blue as the sea on a calm day. They were also filled with the intelligence and compassion that women have so longed to see reflected in men's eyes, but have, as of yet, been sourly disappointed.
There was one person, aside from the Gods, that is, that knew of Wisteria's true gender. Roger, the local goat monger's son, was Wisteria's lover. No one had bothered to ask him the question which everyone was dying to know the answer of, for it seemed far too rude to just outright ask. (Little did they know that if they had asked him, he would have happily shared the truth with them, for Roger wasn't one to keep things to himself.) Roger wasn't anything special; all hands and feet and lanky limbs, with straight, if a little dirty at times, brown hair. The local gossip-hags loved to gab away their days wondering why Wisteria had chosen Roger out of all their suitors, considering they had a large amount of groupies.
As a couple, Wisteria and Roger were very faithful to the Gods and Goddesses, paying homage to them every evening. Although they worshipped every God and Goddess nearly equally, the couple always paid special attention to Demeter, Goddess of the Harvest. You see, Roger depended on a good 'harvest' of grass and fodder for his family's goats to grow big and strong on. Wisteria, a weaver, dyed their own thread and wool, and used all natural products for the dying process. (Wisteria figured that it all traced back to Demeter, anyhow.) Because the couple was so faithful to the Goddess, she rewarded them with small tokens: all thread that was dyed by Wisteria had color as bright and vivid as luscious, ripe berries; all the goats belonging to Roger's family became big and strong, and sold for a lovely price, much to the delight of Roger's father, William.
However, not all was well in that small town in Greece. Well, actually, it was doing quite dandy; the place that was stirring up trouble was on the very tip top of Mount Olympus, where Aphrodite dwelt. This is why: Aphrodite liked attention, and she wasn't afraid to let people know. She craved attention like cannibals craved fresh human meat. And Gods forbid anyone dare steal attention that was rightfully hers! Now, one would think that something so small as the attention (or lack thereof) of a mortal couple wouldn't be that much of a bother to someone as great as the Goddess of Love. But, oh, it was. And for that attention to be given to the Goddess of the Harvest, no less! Aphrodite seethed in anger.
"How dare they go about gallivanting and worshipping that trollop?" the spurned Goddess hissed at her husband. Hephaestus merely looked up at his wife before turning his attention back to his anvil and the shield he was making. He was, by far, the only God on Olympus who was used to the Goddess of Love's long, nearly endless rants. He had learned very quickly into the marriage how to tune her out. "If it wasn't for I," she continued angrily, "the Goddess of Love, there would be no couple of Wisteria the weaver and Roger the goat monger! No! There would only be Roger, the silly little boy who had less than half a brain, and even less good looks, and Wisteria would just be an equally silly little…little…oh, what the Hades is that little mortal, anyways?!"
"Girl," Hephaestus responded in his deep, calm voice before he could stop himself.
"Boy," chimed in Eros as he munched on a small red apple, draped femininely over a matching red couch on the other side of the room.
Apparently even the Gods didn't know Wisteria's gender.
"Whatever!" the Goddess shrieked, her apparent beauty melting away for a split second before returning immediately. "I don't care! It doesn't matter whether Wisteria is a girl, or a boy, or a sea star, I will get her! And her little lover too!"
Hephaestus looked up from his work once more. This was getting a little out of hand, even for Aphrodite. "Honey, I think you're taking this a little too far—"
"Hush!" she commanded, pointing her finger at him. He immediately closed his mouth, not wishing to rile her up even more. "You can't tell me what to do just because I'm a woman!" At this, Hephaestus rolled his eyes; it appeared as though Aphrodite was having one of her feminist moments. "I will have my vengeance, even if it kills them." She paused, thinking, a slow smile creeping up her face. "Actually, that's not such a bad idea…" She trailed off, catching the look that was in her husband's eyes. She let out a gusty sigh, and turned away flippantly. "Oh, fine, I won't kill them. But whatever I do to them will make them suffer for eternity. Yes, suffer for eternity; I like the sound of that. That'll teach them to snub the Goddess of Love!" A triumphantly smug smile graced her charming features as she strode out of the room and down the hall, the tails of her flowing garment trailing after her; no doubt off to scheme with Nemesis. Hephaestus looked at the doorframe a while before turning to Eros.
"Your mom's mental," he informed the youth. The young man shrugged, and tossed away the apple core into an obscured corner of the room before sitting up on the couch and stretching. He snapped his fingers and a small bow and quiver appeared in his hands. Slinging the quiver over his back, he ran his now free hand through his golden hair, making sure to tussle it up a bit. He smiled slyly at the God of the Forge.
"Yes, I know. Where do you think I got it from? Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some business to attend to, and afterwards, I'm off to dine with Psyche." With one last arrogant smirk, which could have been inherited from either sire or dame, or completely learned on his own, the God of Love left the room, leaving the good-natured metal-worker alone. He sighed, once more, and returned to working on the shield, silently praying to the other Gods that no one would be too badly injured.
Now, as all this was happening up on Mount Olympus, Wisteria was in their little weaving studio, dying some new skeins of wool in a vat of beautiful purple dye. As soon as Wisteria took the wool out to dry, the mortal gasped; never had the dyed wool turned out so radiant before! Wisteria squealed in delight, and immediately went to weave it into a tunic to wear later that day; Wisteria wanted to look their best for Roger, after all. Once the tunic was done, the mortal slipped it on and went to go admire their beauty in the mirror, before going to the sitting room to wait for the arrival of their beloved.
But, Roger never came. Wisteria waited for two days and two nights, before, on the dawn of the third day, deeming the whole thing silly and stalking off to demand the gossip-hags whatever became of dear Roger. For, if anyone, anyone at all, knew what became of Roger, it would be the gossip-hags.
Well, it turned out that it wasn't the gossip-hags; they knew nothing of what happened to Roger.
"Cold feet, darling, it happens to the best of them," croaked Joan, though it was clear that she didn't include Roger in that particular category.
"Could have fallen into the well when he went to fetch water," supplied Marcy, a small snaggletooth grin appeared on her wizened features.
"Or the goats could have up and trampled him to death," Betty suggested, throwing in her own two cents. Soon, all the gossip hags were shouting out various tragedies that could have befallen Roger, each far more gruesome than the last. After hearing 'mistaken for a knife holder,' Wisteria could bear no more, and went off to search the small town for any trace of their dear Roger. As could be only expected, no one had seen him. As twilight neared, Wisteria fell upon a stump near the forest, head in hands, sobbing quite loudly.
"Oh, woe is me!" Wisteria bemoaned. "No one has seen my loving Roger! Oh, how I shall miss his long, gangly arms, and his skinny chicken legs! I shall miss entangling my fingers in his ratty, not-well groomed brown hair! It pains my heart greatly to know that I shall never see his lopsided ears, or his dull grey eyes!"
"Excuse me, miss," said a voice from behind Wisteria; the mortal jumped, and whirled around to come face to face with a rather large stag. "Or sir," the stag amended, before looking Wisteria up and down; "What are you exactly?"
Wisteria shrugged. "I don't know. Only Roger knows that." At the very mention of his name, Wisteria burst into hysterics once more. "Roger, my love! Why have you left me—!"
The stag coughed and said loudly, over the mortal's bawling, "I may have seen your Roger." Wisteria looked up, hope gleaming in their eyes.
"You have?" they demanded, jerking forward to land on their knees before the stag, who took a step back on instinct. Wisteria grasped the stag's sleek coat tightly and growled out, "Where?!"
The stag, rather disturbed, motioned in the direction of the forest. "Over yonder. Walk about fifteen minutes in that direction, and you'll come across a clearing. You'll find your Roger there."
"Oh, thank you, kind and gentle stag!" Wisteria cried, using the animal as leverage to get back on their feet. Shrugging as much as was possible for a stag, the animal strutted off, leaving Wisteria alone to traipse into the woods after their lover; the mortal did so audaciously. "Roger!" the mortal called out loudly. There was, however, no response. "Roger, my love, respond to my voice!" Still, Wisteria received no answer.
This continued for about fifteen minutes, until Wisteria reached a large, spacious clearing. In the middle of the clearing, there stood a tree. Now, it wasn't the prettiest of trees; nowhere near it, in fact. Its limbs were long and disproportionate to the trunk, and the mess of leaves on the topmost branches was brown and dried up. Wisteria recognized it immediately.
"Oh, Roger!" Wisteria cried out passionately, running forward and flinging their body on the tree's trunk, wrapping willowy arms about its base. "You're a tree!" the mortal wailed, stating the obvious; Roger had been transformed into a tree. For Aphrodite had remembered, from years and years of experience (not hers, personally), that nothing was quite as horrible as living with a broken heart; not even death. So, to exact her revenge on the unsuspecting mortal couple, she had changed one of them into a tree. It was a toss-up between a tree and a rock, but she figured there were enough rocks in the world.
Wisteria commenced weeping once more, pressing their face against the rough bark. "I'll—never—l-l-leave—here!" the mortal announced between sobs. Wisteria then tried to make the ground around the tree as comfortable as possible, seeing as they would spend the rest of eternity draped over a tree.
Demeter, who had been looking down at her most faithful follower from her position on Mount Olympus, frowned. Why was Wisteria in so much heartache? Out of the corner of her eye, the Goddess of the Harvest caught Aphrodite waltzing into the Feasting Hall, looking far more smug than usual. Demeter sighed in agitation and rolled her eyes. She lost so many of her most loyal supporters like this. The kind Goddess decided she ought to make it up to the poor mortal. Now, only the strongest of the Gods could undo another God's work, so Demeter found herself unable (and if only a little bit unwilling) to change Roger back into a human, so she did the next best thing: She changed Wisteria into a plant.
The plant was long and elegant, its purple flowers the exact same shade as the tunic Wisteria had been wearing at the time. It draped majestically over the tree's limbs, and twined around its trunk, adding an aesthetic splendor to the previously ugly tree. Aphrodite had seen what Demeter had done, and had turned to pout at her fellow Goddess.
"Aw, you had to go and ruin all my fun," the Goddess of love accused, before stalking out of the Feasting Hall. Demeter looked after her, a look of total bewilderment on her face, before rolling her eyes and muttering, "Weirdo," under her breath.
And thus, it came to be that Wisteria drapes over trees, from now until eternity.
Um. Yes. Indeed. My final project for English. Yes, indeed, my English teach DID have low standards! How keen of you to notice! I'm sorry you had to read that, but, honestly, this has the best spelling/punctuation/grammar out of anything I've ever posting, so...rejoice in that fact.
Sorry this is so stupid. Just...sorry for everything. I'll go away now.