This story is partially based on GODDESS OF YESTERDAY, INSIDE THE WALLS OF TROY and TROY. All these books include Helen of Troy and the Trojan War, as this story does. Bibliography will come later. Other resources are: GODS, GODDESSES AND MONSTERS and the web site: http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/index.html By the way, I don't own Greek mythology
Persephone's Daughter
Prologue
The island of my birth is called Anthas, or flower, because it is filled with fields and meadows of flowers, rosebushes and narcissus. It is also called the Stinging Isle because it is the home to many bees and wasps. My father, the king Xuthus, was proud of his island kingdom, and the flowers kings from far away lands came to beg us for. He boasted that even Aphrodite had not so many flowers on her island. Perhaps that is why we paid so dearly in later years.
I was princess of that ghost-kingdom. My name is Cora, in honor of the queen of the Underworld and the goddess of flowers, Persephone. Before she was taken away by Hades, she was called Core, the maiden, and it is said my birth island is sacred to her because of the abundance of her favorite thing, flowers and because there is a special temple to her there. My people adored the goddess, and we mainly worshipped her. My mother, Halia, said Persephone was an ally for someone like I, whose beauty rivaled that of immortals. I believed Persephone my special patron, and prayed to her fervently.
My mother used to weave lilies and roses into my ebony hair lovingly and said that no mortal could help but love me. She was the first to tell me the myth of Persephone; how she had been taken away from her loving mother Demeter to the underworld by Hades, then ravished by him as well. How Hades tricked her into eating a pomegranate seed, thus sealing her fate as queen of the Underworld for part of the year, and goddess of flowers for the other. It was my mother who taught me the rituals of the sacred temple of Persephone. It was my mother who truly loved me, and not my beauty. She died when I was thirteen years of age, which now I take as a blessing. I would not wish my mother see the destruction of our island and be taken as a slave by pirates, even if it did mean I had her a few more years.
After her death, it was I who brought the goddess flowers and prayed for peace and prosperity of our tiny kingdom, as my mother had done every day since she had married my father. Other then that activity and picking flowers, I barely left the women's quarters of the palace. I had been quite desolate since my mother's death. At sixteen, I still kept this routine of mine. Eventually my daily visit to the temple was what saved me.
And the most disturbing and unique thing about me. My beauty. My gift given to me from the gods, also my curse. With hair as dark as ebony and eyes the color of the ocean, I am the called the flower of my island. I knew my beauty would be trouble, for I am rival only to Helen of Sparta, sister to the warriors Castor and Polydeuces. I am not renowned as her though, for the islands of Greece, where I come from, are flecked through the Aegean Sea like drops from a paint brush, and are easy to disappear and be unnoticed in.
The islands. My home, where this story begins...
The Flower Princess
The end of the first part of my life took place on the second anniversary of my mother's death.
In honor of the late queen Halia, my mother, my ladies and I had spent the night at the temple of Persephone, with a dispatch of guards in case wolfs(common on Anthas) were nearby. I awoke that morning to sounds of my ladies rising and saying their morning prayers to the goddess. The smell of the oil spilled from the pyxis vases still clung to my nostrils as I murmured my prayers as well.
"O great Goddess, queen of the Dead, hear my cry!" I sang quietly, "listen and be near me. Protect me today and for all the days after."
The morning was quiet, the way I preferred it. All you could hear were the quiet prayers of my maidens and I and the ocean waves breaking over the rocks. I was thinking how I would go play happily with Lygea and Rhodea in the fields and how we would braid each other's hair later in the evening. How wrong I was. How wrong we all were, but how were mortals to know the gods' will?
"Lady Cora, look!" A guard exclaimed, pointing northwards, where the city was located.
Smoke came over the rocks. Thick, dense smoke from a fire, like a cursed fog it crept everywhere, polluting the air. It was a sign of pirates. Once they had gotten the treasure of the city and killed the men, they would burn the city to ash. I froze in my steps. A coldness spread over my body. 'No, no, this can't be happening to us,' I thought, 'We sacrifice to the gods regularly, we are friends to everyone. This can not be. Surely some farmer's hut caught fire, not pirates.'
I closed my eyes, gathering my strength, then commanded one of the guards to go over the hills the back way, to see what was happening. The guard looked frightened, but quickly disappeared into the bushes. My maids and I waited anxiously, holding hands, praying to the gods to spare the island. I prayed so hard my head started to pound with intensity.
'Zeus Thunderer, please do not let these pirates come, I beg of you.'
'Poseidon, King of the Sea, I pray you sent a storm to sink any pirate's ships that might have come for Anthas'
I prayed to every god I could think of, but felt no presence. Somewhere in my heart I knew that that day all the gods but one had forgotten us, but I was so frightened then. I still had a tiny bit of hope; I still had only one goddess left to turn to.
'Persephone, O great queen, please protect your island, MY island. O protect me, as I know you shall. Please, send the pirates away from our minds and confirm a less gruesome reason for the smoke, goddess.'
We waited for five long hours for the guard to return. I was lost in my head, I could barely see the concerned looks of my women. I could only hope that nothing had happened, even though the smoke was coming in an even greater supply making the air seem black and dangerous. Finally, the guard arrived, out of breath and sweating madly.
"Oh, my princess, pirates have taken beautiful Anthas. I saw them as they burned the palace. There was nothing I could do....everyone was dead. Your father, the peasants... everything is destroyed. It was like they swept through the town with a net."
I felt bile rush up to the tip of my tongue, but I choked it back down. The fraise "with a net" is actually a fishing term. The fisherman throws out a net into the sea in hopes of catching an entire school of fish.
Everything gone? How? In my mind I was screaming, but I held it in. I turned to look at my ladies as they started sobbing, throwing their arms around each other. The guards started to group to form a plan. I did nothing. I only stood their dazed, looking into the sky at the black smoke against the blue. Everything was numb. It was too much for me. I felt dizzy and all of a sudden the ground came up to meet me. I fainted.
A/N: HI! I love Greek mythology! I'm fascinated with all things having to do with the Trojan war and Helen of Troy, which is why I'm writing this! Cora is fictional and so is Anthas, but I'll explain that later, ok?
Persephone's Daughter
Prologue
The island of my birth is called Anthas, or flower, because it is filled with fields and meadows of flowers, rosebushes and narcissus. It is also called the Stinging Isle because it is the home to many bees and wasps. My father, the king Xuthus, was proud of his island kingdom, and the flowers kings from far away lands came to beg us for. He boasted that even Aphrodite had not so many flowers on her island. Perhaps that is why we paid so dearly in later years.
I was princess of that ghost-kingdom. My name is Cora, in honor of the queen of the Underworld and the goddess of flowers, Persephone. Before she was taken away by Hades, she was called Core, the maiden, and it is said my birth island is sacred to her because of the abundance of her favorite thing, flowers and because there is a special temple to her there. My people adored the goddess, and we mainly worshipped her. My mother, Halia, said Persephone was an ally for someone like I, whose beauty rivaled that of immortals. I believed Persephone my special patron, and prayed to her fervently.
My mother used to weave lilies and roses into my ebony hair lovingly and said that no mortal could help but love me. She was the first to tell me the myth of Persephone; how she had been taken away from her loving mother Demeter to the underworld by Hades, then ravished by him as well. How Hades tricked her into eating a pomegranate seed, thus sealing her fate as queen of the Underworld for part of the year, and goddess of flowers for the other. It was my mother who taught me the rituals of the sacred temple of Persephone. It was my mother who truly loved me, and not my beauty. She died when I was thirteen years of age, which now I take as a blessing. I would not wish my mother see the destruction of our island and be taken as a slave by pirates, even if it did mean I had her a few more years.
After her death, it was I who brought the goddess flowers and prayed for peace and prosperity of our tiny kingdom, as my mother had done every day since she had married my father. Other then that activity and picking flowers, I barely left the women's quarters of the palace. I had been quite desolate since my mother's death. At sixteen, I still kept this routine of mine. Eventually my daily visit to the temple was what saved me.
And the most disturbing and unique thing about me. My beauty. My gift given to me from the gods, also my curse. With hair as dark as ebony and eyes the color of the ocean, I am the called the flower of my island. I knew my beauty would be trouble, for I am rival only to Helen of Sparta, sister to the warriors Castor and Polydeuces. I am not renowned as her though, for the islands of Greece, where I come from, are flecked through the Aegean Sea like drops from a paint brush, and are easy to disappear and be unnoticed in.
The islands. My home, where this story begins...
The Flower Princess
The end of the first part of my life took place on the second anniversary of my mother's death.
In honor of the late queen Halia, my mother, my ladies and I had spent the night at the temple of Persephone, with a dispatch of guards in case wolfs(common on Anthas) were nearby. I awoke that morning to sounds of my ladies rising and saying their morning prayers to the goddess. The smell of the oil spilled from the pyxis vases still clung to my nostrils as I murmured my prayers as well.
"O great Goddess, queen of the Dead, hear my cry!" I sang quietly, "listen and be near me. Protect me today and for all the days after."
The morning was quiet, the way I preferred it. All you could hear were the quiet prayers of my maidens and I and the ocean waves breaking over the rocks. I was thinking how I would go play happily with Lygea and Rhodea in the fields and how we would braid each other's hair later in the evening. How wrong I was. How wrong we all were, but how were mortals to know the gods' will?
"Lady Cora, look!" A guard exclaimed, pointing northwards, where the city was located.
Smoke came over the rocks. Thick, dense smoke from a fire, like a cursed fog it crept everywhere, polluting the air. It was a sign of pirates. Once they had gotten the treasure of the city and killed the men, they would burn the city to ash. I froze in my steps. A coldness spread over my body. 'No, no, this can't be happening to us,' I thought, 'We sacrifice to the gods regularly, we are friends to everyone. This can not be. Surely some farmer's hut caught fire, not pirates.'
I closed my eyes, gathering my strength, then commanded one of the guards to go over the hills the back way, to see what was happening. The guard looked frightened, but quickly disappeared into the bushes. My maids and I waited anxiously, holding hands, praying to the gods to spare the island. I prayed so hard my head started to pound with intensity.
'Zeus Thunderer, please do not let these pirates come, I beg of you.'
'Poseidon, King of the Sea, I pray you sent a storm to sink any pirate's ships that might have come for Anthas'
I prayed to every god I could think of, but felt no presence. Somewhere in my heart I knew that that day all the gods but one had forgotten us, but I was so frightened then. I still had a tiny bit of hope; I still had only one goddess left to turn to.
'Persephone, O great queen, please protect your island, MY island. O protect me, as I know you shall. Please, send the pirates away from our minds and confirm a less gruesome reason for the smoke, goddess.'
We waited for five long hours for the guard to return. I was lost in my head, I could barely see the concerned looks of my women. I could only hope that nothing had happened, even though the smoke was coming in an even greater supply making the air seem black and dangerous. Finally, the guard arrived, out of breath and sweating madly.
"Oh, my princess, pirates have taken beautiful Anthas. I saw them as they burned the palace. There was nothing I could do....everyone was dead. Your father, the peasants... everything is destroyed. It was like they swept through the town with a net."
I felt bile rush up to the tip of my tongue, but I choked it back down. The fraise "with a net" is actually a fishing term. The fisherman throws out a net into the sea in hopes of catching an entire school of fish.
Everything gone? How? In my mind I was screaming, but I held it in. I turned to look at my ladies as they started sobbing, throwing their arms around each other. The guards started to group to form a plan. I did nothing. I only stood their dazed, looking into the sky at the black smoke against the blue. Everything was numb. It was too much for me. I felt dizzy and all of a sudden the ground came up to meet me. I fainted.
A/N: HI! I love Greek mythology! I'm fascinated with all things having to do with the Trojan war and Helen of Troy, which is why I'm writing this! Cora is fictional and so is Anthas, but I'll explain that later, ok?