A/N: Go to my profile and the on to the link to go to fictionpress, read the story I've got there please, its called 'the Sublime and the Courage of a lion's Heart', and review, pretty pretty please, YOU NEVER KNOW, IT MIGHT POSSIBLY BE GOOD AND IF IT IS NOT GOOD THEN TELL ME!
Also go and read my best friend's stories, 1madcat, especially 'if you are what you are not.'
THANKYOU FOR ALL YOUR REVIEWS, I APPRECIATE AND LOVE EVERYONE OF YOU. Come on you guys, lots of you are reading my story, but not a lot of you are reviewing!
"… My only love sprung from my only hate…"
My hand slid along the surface of a small, cool pool, destroying the calm and creating ripples where previously only stillness had flourished. I looked past my reflection, it was nothing interesting to look at and I had seen it time and time again, to see the trees, leaves wilting and drooping all about me, the grass, brown and dry and crumbling beneath the weight of my feet. I was curled up thinking in a place that reminded me so much of where I used to go to find peace. The burning sun, a wavy circle of fire, glared white and scorching, high in the sky. It was hot, too hot surely for what should have been the middle of Autumn? Summer was maintaining a harsh grasp on these lands, very harsh in comparison to the ordinarily greenery and humid lushness of this land that I had learnt over the years to call my home. It was extremely reminiscent of my old lands, over which Lynceus and his brothers now ruled, but I suspect that they were ruled more by his brothers, for Lynceus did not have Celcy to take care of him and was taking his own sweet time in the recovery process.
My old lands where rain had come sparsely and only for a short time, except for a few, strange times in that dry desert where I used to live. Water had been a precious commodity and seeing it used for ornament and visual pleasure rather than for simply washing or drinking was still bemusing. There was a great deal I had yet to learn still, even after six years spent melting in this somewhat oppressive greenery. One might have called this place paradise, me, I called it a jungle of humidity and stupidity.
Thinking of Egypt made me think of all the times I had spent bathing in pools of water I had found on various travels, hoping to find a way to get rid of the heat. Water in a dry land was not to be ignored, my maids used to have to walk to the nearest water, and then carry big metal buckets to and from them, climbing up all of the stairs on the way, that water was often left in my room for weeks until it was absolutely necessary for them to change it again. I cast a suspicious glance about, looking for non-existent people. The ponds of clear blue water were maintained by servants who came in the morning and vanished after doing their job. The water had the misfortune of being in my area of rooms, remote and well away from civilisation. No one came of left without me knowing, and I can tell you that I know that they never came near me.
To all other appearances a grey cat sat at the edge of one, hypnotised by the fish that resided in half of the pools of water, staring, hoping to charm them right out of the water, she was perfectly capable of doing it too! She purred slightly and stretched languidly, dipping a paw in, the reaching closer and closer until the inevitable happened, and with a splash and a yelp, the scrap of grey fluff fell into the lipid silence that became a flurry of movement as fish swam to the furthest corner away from the predator and the cat tried and failed to regain her dignity as she regained her place back on the side.
Time froze for her as limbs elongated and morphed from animal to human with surprising quickness. Her amber eyes gleamed with a silent reproach as she watched me doubled over in laughter. Pointing her small sharp nose in the air, she sniffed and with a toss of grey hair over her shoulder, she stalked off in the opposite direction to me, leaving behind an air of offence and indignation. The small girl who had told me that she would be honoured to die in my employ, had become a woman older than me, that was still small but, shall I say, a little less overawed with who I was.
Her pale body glistened naked in the sparkling sunlight, she still had not learnt how to morph and retain some clothing, with a scowl at me she leapt into the air, using skill that she had been unable to teach me, with a cat-like grace, diving into the pool that I had been contemplating, she therefore effectively drenched me. I cast another look around, sorely tempted now.
"I will tell you, Nestra, when there are people about, worry not, I am your guardian. Gods! You humans are such prudes, I see not why you are so… worried about people seeing you, there are so many things that you have tried to teach me that I have not yet understood. You are such interesting creatures, you really are, such fascinating things, made in the image of the Gods, yet so much more than immortals, you lead such puny lives and somehow manage to fit as much as you can into them. So interesting, I really find you fascinating Hypermnestra, I really do."
Greer had rapidly adopted our swearing and the words that Eros used frequently and the more inventive ones that I dished out, saying them oddly with that slight lilt of hers, yet still failed to understand the simple things that were just simply not done. As for finding me interesting, well she was the one who could change from a cat to a human at will, could you get more interesting than that? I think not! As for puny lives and me being a prude, well, I may be slightly concerned about certain things, but that was only because I wanted to make perfectly clear to all that I was not my sisters.
But with that I took off the thin robe that I had been wearing and left in only my shift I jumped in after her. The ponds so deep that I could not stand up in them, my shoulders stung in the cold water, telling me that I had spend too much time out in my sleeveless robe without applying a cream that Celcy had given me to stop myself from burning. I was already a deep brown all over but however long Greer sat outside with me as I talked and told her things and she asked questions, she never tanned or burned, and always remained a pale cream.
We played and splashed each other for a while, enjoying the coolness that was relief to the burning sun. Then we paused and floated for a while, I sighed and day dreamed. Wondering what Lynceus was doing, was it this hot in Egypt, was it worse or had Autumn already started to bring coolness?
As I thought a black shadow fell upon me, the absence of the sun, shaded by some one above me was obvious, I screamed, and opened my eyes. Unfortunately I was blinded momentarily by the sun and unable to see who it was. As the spots on my vision cleared I scrambled out to the side and hastily pulled back on my robe. The person who had politely turned the other way, desperately trying to ignore Greer turned a scarlet red.
I hissed at Greer, "Get your cat behind over here and put on some clothes, this person is important and at the moment, he is feeling really awkward because of you now move! Now!"
Obediently she moved next to me and became pulling on the share set of clothing that I brought about everywhere with me. I turned around and greeted the Argive King as politely as I could possibly have done. I blushed furiously as he turned around, eyes clenched together, trying so carefully not to offend me.
"You can open your eyes, Your Highness… how can I assist you today… Pelasgus?"
The King was nothing like my father, he was quiet and mild, sensitive and a rather weak person. There was nothing aggressive or violent about him and while he was rather clever, all in all he was not a good ruler, an alright ruler, but not a fabulous one or spectacular one either. He was small and overweight, going bald and was a good fifteen years older than my father.
He blinked at me for a few minutes, dazed by the sun and smiled faintly at me. Surprising as it is, we got on quite well, it had been a chance meeting over a year ago when he had learnt that Danaus had another daughter, one that he had not been told about, so we spent the day talking about things, he told me all about Argos, his childhood and the culture and traditions he had been raised in, and was thrilled when I told him that my family had originated from Greece. I told him the myth of Io and Zeus, how the God had pursued her, turned her into a heifer and hid her from Hera's wrath, but then Hera chased her all the way from Greece to Egypt, we were descended from Io, beloved by the great God Zeus. That day he left called me Nestra and I left calling the King, Pelasgus.
"Well… child, I think that your self-imposed imprisonment here should be at an end, it is the anniversary of my reign here in Argos and I have ordered a festival for the end of this week, dancing, enough alcohol to fill thousands of thirsty men and women, food, music. Come child… I have a wish to see you there; do not disobey me in this please. Whatever happened in Egypt, I forgive you of it, you are intelligent and whatever you did could not have been serious."
"Have you consulted my father about this, he would not be pleased to see me there." Since my escape and punishment, my father had privately banned me from any social outings, I did not mind, I had not desire to go to any of them.
"Despite what you father believes, he is not King of Argos yet, I am and what I say in Argos is law." There were also times that despite all of his weaknesses, King Pelasgus surprised you, the glint in his eyes told me that he was brighter than he looked, but that was something I had never taken for granted, people always surprised you, so I had learned not to underestimate them.
I smiled at him, "It would be good if you reminded him of that now and then Your Majesty."
"I try, so be there, only tonight if you want but you must come."
I stepped out of the glare of the sun for a moment, into shade, and looked at him properly, my eye not blinded; it saw what had been hidden to me previously. An aura of danger surrounded the King, and I would not have been very worried for royalty are always in danger, if I had not sensed Death calling for this man. Worried now, for this King had no wife and no heir, not unusual, but he had no immediate family either, instant images of Argos in civil war like my own homeland flooded me.
"Highness, Sire, you do feel… alright do you not? Is your health still fine?" Hoping he would catch the meaning of my question I glared at him in a way that made him jump, remember that he was a rather timid man and I doubt that anyone had ever looked at him in that way before.
"Yes Nestra, very fine my dear, why? Do you worry that your father or one of the people wanting to be your father might try to dispose of me? Worry not child… such things are not for a woman to think of."
I nodded, gritting my teeth and staring at the floor, so I was too girlish to warn the King, well, I had tried; if he listened not then it was no longer my problem. He walked off as I contemplated the stupidity of men, before leaving he gave Greer and me a strange look; especially Greer, evidently he too was contemplating the strangeness of women, how different we are! As soon as his back vanished she burst in a bout of hysterical laughter that I am certain he must have been able to hear, I turned around to glare at her.
"No one there to see us, what was it that you told me, 'worry not, I will tell you if any one comes? He walked right up to us and what he must have thought of you, I do not know! Did you see the look he gave us!"
"Nestra you worry too much, I suspect that he has women that walk around with nothing on in his rooms and does not really care. He will forget that he ever had a conversation with you, you forget that he is very old."
"But you said that you would tell me if you saw anyone, why did you not tell me?"
She grinned in a very feline way at me, "I forgot?" She offered with a wink. "What will you be like when your betrothed gets well and wants to marry you again? Will you be like this with him? Or are there different rules for how husband and wife act?"
She asked questions like these on purpose, I swear she did, "When Lynceus gets well the last thing I am going to do is parade about in front of him wearing no clothes."
"Why not?"
"Because… I just would not, it would not be the right thing to do."
"But why not? you have not explained anything at all to me, you are supposed to help me become more human and not answering my questions is not helping me. That does not make any sense at all Hypermnestra, are you avoiding my questions, you do know that is something makes no sense, it must be nonsense, do you not?"
I sighed, rolled my eyes and shook my head and gave up trying to teach Greer about things like this. It was pointless, she stubbornly refused to understand.
"How about Greer, when we see Eros again, you remember that question and ask it him, I am sure he will answer it for you."
She smiled at the mention of Eros and her eyes gleamed, her and Eros had a very strange relationship, if you ignored the times he had been bitten or scratched with her claws, and you saw her curled up on his knee as if she was still a cat, you would think that they were more than just friends. That is if you missed the times they had the most ear-splitting arguments about things that only magical creatures could argue about, such as which was the best animal, dog or a cat, all I can tell you about that was that Greer ended up in a tree for the whole night while I searched for her and Artemis cleaned up Eros as he was a little worse for wear, ask them who won and Eros will say it was him as Greer stayed in the tree, and Greer will say it was her, for Eros lost quite a bit of blood that day.
All I can say about Greer and Artemis is that they do not get on in the slightest bit; they hate each other and argue as if both of them were cats. For saying that Artemis created Greer, well… she really does not like her creations a lot. I think Artemis did not like me having another guardian other than her, and I made a point of distracting Greer with Celcy whenever Artemis came to see me.
"Come, we better get in before Celcy calls the guards down on us, and I think that if they see you floating about in the pool like you were just now, I doubt that they would turn around and ignore you while you put on some clothes like Pelasgus did."
We walked back, the little grey cat she had been looked back, mournfully at the fish; I laughed and grinned at her,
"Do not worry; I will get you a nice big fish that smells something dreadful for your supper."
"Promise." She asked, the big eyes gleaming and sending me a sad look,
"Promise." Even though the mere hint of fish made Celcy feel sick, it would keep Greer happy, against my wishes I had become attached to Greer. I tried to tell myself that it would only mean that it would hurt me more when she died, but I could not help it, she was one of my only friends, what could I do?
I walked out of a crowd, needing space and fresh air, it was still stifling, but a small breeze was trying to blow through the people as they celebrated their King's twenty years ruling over them.
I tripped over the ridiculously long hem on my long robe; it was white, being the coolest colour I could wear at the moment and was embroidered by a professional with little blue and yellow flowers shaped like stars. My hair was shoulder length and bobbed up and down as I walked; the tight ringlets tied back into two bunches with blue ribbons.
My sisters staggered about, intoxicated from the alcohol or weighed down by the men they had leaning on them for support. Gorgophone, who I had avoided as much as possible, which had not been hard as I was not allowed to social events, spotted me and headed straight towards me, no doubt unable to resist taunting me or pocking fun at me. Her hips swaying in way that she no doubt had practised and perfected, her straight blond hair coming past her shoulders in a waterfall of gold, I did envy Gorgophone her hair, it was manageable and did what she wanted it to. My sisters all looked beautiful, like Goddesses, if they looked anything like Io had done, it was simple to see why she was coveted by Zeus.
"Well… look who it is? You know I had so hoped that you had died, I mean those slaves died in their thousands and you were always with them, why did you survive the disease? You should have died from the poisoning anyway."
"What would you know about poison? In fact, what do you know about anything?"
She did not like that insult one bit and her eyes narrowed dangerously.
"More than you do dear sister, why I helped plan it, and you know, it was only supposed to be Lynceus and his father who were given that amount of poison, you were only supposed to be unconscious. But let me just say that myself and Danaus' servant made a deal, she would give the same amount of poison to you as she gave to Lynceus and Aegyptus, you would die, I would take your place as eldest child and she would gain more gold in her pockets than she had ever imagined in her wildest dreams. But she failed, what a pity."
The last words were spat at me, she was too close for comfort now, pushing her face into mine, so I pushed her backwards, away from me and out of my personal space.
"First of all, never say Aegyptus' name in my company, he was a good man and you saying his name degrades him. Second, I am not your dear sister, we share nothing except that man's blood. Third, if you ever do anything like that to me again, I will kill you."
"Not…" She said, pausing to look at me with a false smile, "If I kill you first."
I hit her, slapped her right across her check hard enough to leave a mark, so hard that I think she may possibly be left with a bruise tomorrow, just possibly.
As my hand, my flesh touched hers, I went into a trance, I could hear what I was saying, but I could do nothing, I could not move, or anything. My legs gave in and fell to the floor, ironically on my knees in front of her.
Over and over again I chanted,
"Death comes now to you
And all the other forty-eight.
Share the blood and the fate.
Stand afraid,
In front of Hell's gates.
Tricked and cursed
Forever you will wait.
No rest or respite,
For all eternity you must pay the price."
When my voice grew hoarse and eyes fluttered open, the chant still rolling about in my mind and teasing my tongue. I looked up to find her still there, staring at me in horror.
"For all eternity you must pay the price." The words escaped from my mouth in a soft whisper before I could close it. With a terrified scream she fled, leaving me there.
What price did my sisters have to pay? What had they done that they must make amends for? It was connected to my visions of me in eternal hell, I knew that whatever they did some time in the not too distant future, they would do something horrendous, something horrible, but the question I asked myself was, would I do it too? With this thing that they would do, would come the curse, they would be tricked, forever to fill up jugs with holes in, never able to complete their task. From their eternal punishment, would the civil war I had seen so many years ago in my visions, the one where there was not a ruler because we were all dead stem from the terrible thing that my sisters and I might do? One hundred people dead, was that the thing? My head hurt as I was forced to relive all of my visions one by one sifting through them, trying to find out any clue, any hint of why we would be cursed.
Two paths Aphrodite had said, was one of them to do the same as my sisters and end up in death, my back aching, moving simultaneously with my sisters as though we had but one body, and my own body screaming out for a rest, for absolution; absolution from what? What will I do that is so terrible? Why would redemption never come to me if I chose that path?
The other path of normalcy; where I had a chance of a life, of a family with Lynceus. A life that I was just realising that I wanted, more than anything in the world. I wanted to watch my son grow up and become a King, to watch my daughters as they grew into women, I wanted a family and to make sure that my children were never treated like I was. I wanted to be a mother, a wife, some one that was loved. These thoughts and feelings that I had never felt before all flooded out in one giant rush, with no warning or anything, I did not know how to deal with this, I really did not.
I stayed there in that place thinking for a long time, while all about me people celebrated, drank, laughed and lived their normal, ordinary lives. I finally got home when Greer found me, following a trail only she knew that linked her to me, bringing with her Celecy. I was lying on the ground, maybe I was sleeping, but I never felt Celcy lift me up into her arms and carry me home, I never heard them as they called my name, nor did I feel the water as they tipped me into a cold bath, hoping to bring down the fever that burned my skin.
I knew nothing until I woke up, the day after, lying in bed. Even then I could not remember anything of what had happened to me that night after Gorgophone had left me, all I could recall were eight words, flying about my mind, fighting me, trying to be spoken.
For all eternity you must pay the price.
4, 031 words! The muse is still going strong!
Thanks to all who reviewed, I love you all, I'm so glad that you like this story 'cause it's my favourite one out of all the ones I've written, and the best. I am now setting a target for myself to write about 3000 words a go.