MD: continued? I did!
Elise142 :Beautiful you say! Thank ou!
IAmAMythologist: Glad to hear from you! Merry Christmas, hope you enjoy. I'm glad you like the greek words! I love them too!
Vanessa Masters: overconfidence, kills 95 percent in greek myths.
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Chapter: XXI
All of the city seemed to be standing by the gates, anxious to watch the goddess maiden and her companions depart Thessaly with their young Prince. Save for pious bows, and whispered prayers of blessing, the people were silent, the weight of unspoken hope louder than any spoken word, or stone sunk into the sea. Iris could hear them, suddenly and completely, hear the longings of their hearts within her head -all at once, without stop.
Goddess, lady of Olympus, hear me...
My baby is sick goddess, she will go to Pluton if she is not helped, please...
I am starving lady, lady, I am starving...
I lie in the street goddess, I am dying and afraid. Please O Thea, send to me a street dog to lick my fingers, so I do not die alone...
The last one did it more than the others, with a shuttered gasp and force of shear will, Iris erected a wall around her mind, as tall as the heights of Olympus, and twice as thick. She had to...she had too, for her sanity's miserable shake. By Gaia...was this what it was, to be a High god who ruled the world? An Olympian? To have the miseries and shame and wanting of earth crashing against your thoughts, till you couldn't hear yourself anymore?
Tumulus saw her stumble, as they stepped down the cities high slopes, and took her arm to steady her.
"I'm alright," the goddess maiden said before he could ask. "I'm alright, Tumulus, truly."
The goat-man didn't look convince, which was good, as it meant her companion was not an idiot. But thankfully there were too many eyes and ears around them for the satyr to fully question his lady. But his eyes and thoughts were keen enough to see that where the greater part of the crowd was gathered, the more Iris' lips trembled and her hands clenched at formless air, before releasing. And he did his best to hustle her along faster here.
It was well that he did so, for if Iris stood there any longer, she might've wept for the fact that she had absolutely nothing within her power that she could grant these people.
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Phaethon did not walk with his face to the front until long after the city of his birth had disappeared behind the green veil of the trees; and his mother and sisters by mere extension. Ture, Iris had gotten the False King to vow upon his life that not only would he maintain the women u- keep, but he would delay the daughter's wedding until they returned...but she had her doubt's about just how long his fear of her would last, before his foolishness reinstated itself.
A horrilbe sort of knot had tangled in her gut, whenever she glanced over at Helios' half mortal son. Clothed in appropriate travel wear, a travelers' straw petasos upon his dark head, his mother had given him his grandfathers sword and shield- the one he had been too small to lift in the past. Despite the fact that this was no longer an issue, their weight still lay heavy on him.
And he was quiet...impossible quiet, compared to the firebrand they had met in the hall. they only time thrus far that his mouth had opened was when Daidalos and Aiolos rejoined them, with tossed manes and proud strides.
He was quiet as they set off, Iris riding behind Tumulus, and Phaethon riding Daidalos alone, Daphne once more preferring to walk, untiring upon the earth.
But when he remained quiet as they bedded down for the night, Iris couldn't take it anymore.
"Phaethon, would you please speak, just so we know that Zeus put the power of speech in your mouth," she finally requested, making the boy jump as if he'd sat on his sword tip.
"I'm...I'm sorry Lady," he rushed out, ashamed. "I just...I keep expecting to wake up."
Daphne tilted her head, interested. "You feel as if you are asleep?"
Phaethon shrugged, looping an arm around his knee as his hand reached into the fire, and stroked the wood without being burn. "Wouldn't you, if you were me? This is everything a Oneiroi of mine would contain...The only think that stops me from believing it is that everything is in color."
Iris blinked. She couldn't have heard that right. "Pardon? Why would your dreams lack color?"
All three of her companions turned to her., bewilderment in their eyes.
"Because there only dreams, Lady," Phaethon said simply, "I don't know how it is for the gods, but no human dreams in life's multicolor shades. Everything is in back and white in the dream world."
Iris shuddered at the very thought and tightened the cloak around her covered wings. "Dreadful."
"We are use to it," Daphne assured her, chucking with a fox's grin. "But that is why its more pleasant to be awake and going about your business. Speaking of which, where to next, Iris Thaumantias?"
Sitting up straighter, Iris reached for her oinochoe, pulling out her scroll from Prometheus and unrolling it in flowing waves over her lap. It was so extensive, she had a difficult time holding it all, and Tumulus had to help her.
"Lord Foresight said chapters XVII to XX, my Lady," he reminded her. Iris nodded with her tongue pocking out, while her quick finger scrolled down to the mention section. After a moment, she jabbed the papyrus triumphantly.
"Next we much head to the battlefield before Mount Othrys...which means we head southwards."
Daphne pressed her mouth. "That will not be easy, Lady. Monsters unbowed still live in those lands."
Phaethon's eyes flashed with a glint of the sun. "That is what she has us for, daughter of the water, to see her safely to the Mountain to...to..."
He blinked suddenly, and looked from face to face.
"Um...I mean no dishonor, but what exactly is this Quest about?"
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Oh...apparent in all the ta-do, they'd somehow forgot to mention what they were asking the son of Helios to risk his life for. Oops.
Heartily embarrassed, Iris hurried to fill him in as much as the rest of them -to the greatest extent she could permit herself. And she tried to cast it in terms that suggested honor, kleos, to him for being apart of it.
"Basilieus Zeus gave the command to go to Pluton's domain to receive what he very much desires, with hope that it will allow peace and stability in Greece," she intoned grandly.
"Oh," Phaethon muttered after a moment, shoulder slumping.
Tumulus frowned at him. "What do you mean 'oh'? This is no small matter son of Helios!"
"I know that," he snapped back, curled and resentful as a ram. "I do, I just...I thought maybe...the god of the sun had remembered us, and sent help in our shame."
Oh, indeed.
Iris shuffled closer and held out a hand in offering.
"The sun is high up and far away," she said. "And he must keep his focus on his course across the sky."
"So I've been told," Phaethon muttered, before breathing out, bidding all good night, and rolling away from them. When his breath had even out, the three companions looked at each other.
"He is very young," Daphne said bluntly. "Young and brash and unhumble, for all he has endured. I see no mark of wisdom in him."
"Yes, but Lord Prometheus said he had a part to play here," Tumulus argued...though he look as if he wasn't sure he ought to. "We cannot go against that."
The naiad huffed. "Maybe, but you mark my words, this boy won't live to make old bones."
"Hush! You'll call Moirai's eyes upon us! And remember, only one here is truly Deathless!"
Iris remained silent, unable to add anything to what was being said. Both were true, and the Fates were most defiantly laughing...Tumulus was as most people were, superstitious and small. Perhaps it was beyond the comprehension of the non-gods that Moirai's eye was always upon everything that crawled and crept through the world. Perhaps all worlds.
There was no avoiding it, no escaping with it, no pleading or bargaining with it. The path laid out simply had to be walked, with as much courage as the psyche could drenched up from the Tatarus of one's being. With the hope that it would be enough.
Shuddering, she returned to attention to the scroll, taking in what it said about the One Below:
We are three brothers born by Rheia to Kronos, Zeus, and I [Poseidon], and the third is Aides Polysemantor, lord of the dead men. All was divided among us three ways, each given his domain. I [Poseidon] when the lots were shaken drew the grey sea to live in forever; Aides drew the lot of the mists and the darkness, and Zeus was allotted the wide sky, in the cloud and the bright air. But earth and high Olympos are common to all three...
Yes, yes, she knew this, what else?
But sail upon the wind of lamentation, my friends, and about your head row with your hands' rapid stroke in conveyance of the dead, that stroke which always causes the sacred slack-sailed, black-clothed ship [of Kharon] to pass over Akheron to the unseen land here Helios does not walk, the sunless land that receives all men.
Okay better...anything else?
"Your Psykhe [on its journey to the underworld] will reach the lifeless river [Akheron (Acheron)] over which Kharon presides. He peremptorily demands the fare, and when he receives it he transports travellers on his stitched-up craft over to the further shore. (So even among the dead, greed enjoys its life; even that great god Kharon, who gathers taxes for Dis, does not do anything for nothing. A poor man on the point of death must find his fare, and no one will let him breathe his last until he has his copper ready.) You must allow this squalid elder to take for your fare one of the coins you are to carry, but he must remove it form your mouth with his own hand. Then again, as you cross the sluggish stream, and old man now dead will float up to you, and raising his decaying hands will beg you to drag him into the boat; but you must not be moved by a sense of pity, for that is not permitted . . . When you have obtained you must make your way back . . . you must give the greedy mariner the one coin which you have held back, and once again across the river you must retrace your earlier steps and return to the harmony of heaven's stars."
The last few bits are from the writings of the Anicent Greeks...blows your mind a little huh, that something written a thusand years ago can show up on your comuter or phone?
Merry Christmas to all! God Bless 2020!