Of Divine Retribution and Facing Personal Faults
"Facing difficulties are inevitable. Learning from them is optional."
- John C. Maxwell
When the four friends returned back to the villa, all of them was anxious to see what exactly Meg had been able to grab from Barak.
With almost trembling fingers Meg pulled the object from her pocket: it was a golden medallion, depicting a lion with a turret-crown. Meg frowned, for she had never seen such symbol before. Had they went through all this trouble only to find a dead end?
"I don't know this symbol. I suppose none of you recognize this either?" Meg growled with annoyance.
"No," Hercules agreed while Icarus was ferociously shaking his head beside his friend.
"Hold that thought," Cassandra quipped back while wrecking her brain.
Cassandra felt something tingling in her mind, a sense of recognition she couldn't quite grasp. It was driving her insane. She had seen that symbol somewhere before, but where?
Then it hit her: her scroll, the one which had the symbols of the Old Gods in it! She dived for her sack, rummaging through it until she found the right scroll. The she pulled it open, quickly scanning through it with her eyes.
Her friends had been keeping a close eye to her antics, waiting for a miracle to happen. And Cassandra was not the one to disappoint them.
"Found it!" She then announced with victorious glee as she found what she was looking for.
"Look, there it is," Cassandra showed the scroll to her friends, pointing to the right symbol.
"Cybele?" Hercules read out loud slowly. Meg felt pieces connecting inside her brains immediately.
"Cybele! That's the Goddess my father was talking about, back on that dinner!" Meg reminded Hercules and his face lit up with recognition.
"Oh! Your father DID talk about her. Or more like about her followers," Hercules agreed.
"So what about them?" Cassandra piped in.
"Well, he said her followers have been rallying up, talking about some divine retribution coming for Greeks," Meg recalled.
"That certainly does fit the picture," Cassandra agreed with a grim look on her face.
"So what level of retribution are we talking about here?" Icarus asked, looking at the circle of friends before him.
"If it's divine retribution, it has kinda ominous ring to it," Meg pointed out.
"So we're talking about big-time payback time, not just few locus and a little rain?" Icarus made sure.
"Probably not," Meg agreed, folding her arms around her torso. Icarus grimaced.
"I've heard certain… Stuff concerning the cult of Cybele. Isn't she the one who asks her male followers to be castrated?" Cassandra recalled aloud, making both Hercules and Icarus wince from sympathy.
"Well, that doesn't sound like a pleasant Goddess. How have we crossed her in any way?" Meg drily noted.
"Well, nowadays she's more of an Eastern Goddess. My guess would be, that she's still holding a grudge against what Greeks did to Troy," Cassandra wondered aloud.
"Yeah, well, Greeks did leave the place completely leveled," Meg winced at the revelation.
"But that was years ago, we didn't have anything to do with that, why would she be mad at us?" Hercules pointed out.
"They are Gods; they have all the eternity to hold grudges!" Icarus spread out his hands.
"And we are still Greeks, so I have to agree with Icarus in this one: when Gods decide to punish mortals, it often has very little to do who actually is guilty. All getting hurt in the process are collateral damage in cosmic scales," Cassandra agreed.
"So probably the one behind all of this seems to be Cybele. Why is she working with Hades, then?" Hercules pondered out loud.
"Well, it isn't a secret that Hades has a bone to pick with your father and now with you as well. She probably heard about it and decided to seek help from certain deity residing in Underworld. My guess would be that Hades persuaded her to start the attack from Thebes. In her plan, Thebes would be only collateral damage on her plans to make Greece pay," Meg sighed.
"That's grimly put, but accurate, though," Cassandra agreed.
"There is probably even more to it why Cybele decided to team up with Hades. Hades is after all the God of the Underworld as well. That is probably also one of the reasons why Cybele decided to seek aid from Hades, if willing he can offer Cybele an army of her fallen soldiers. If they are truly raising an army of undead Trojan soldiers, that means Hector and all other slain Trojan soldiers will be resurrected as well," Hercules pondered aloud.
"Well, that DOES sounds ominous," Meg muttered, shaking her head.
"Cybele is a Goddess, can't your daddy Zeus and other Gods talk some sense into her?" Icarus then asked from Hercules.
"She's one of the Old Gods, she has been around much longer than the Olympian Gods. So she's not under my father's command. And I think she wouldn't take it well, if my father or any other God would try to point her to her own place," Hercules sighed.
"So much for that card," Meg sardonically pointed out.
"Okay. So what's Barak's part in all this?" Icarus asked, trying to piece all the information together.
"Hmmm. Well, Creon talked about the followers of Cybele rising up. If they would take a part in the fight, they would need someone to lead them, right?" Hercules wondered aloud, collecting the pieces of information he had collected during his training with Phil.
"Yeah, they're more like believers and followers of a cult, not warriors," Meg agreed.
"So Barak's job was to lead the followers of Cybele? So even believers will fight, when it comes to that," Cassandra commented drily.
"It doesn't necessarily come to that. Remember what you foretold us? Wasn't the symbol supposed to make them follow Barak?" Hercules pointed out, a hopeful look on his face.
"Yeah. You're right. So now that we have the symbol, they won't follow him?" Meg agreed, her face lighting up as well.
"We can certainly hope so, but we can't rely on that. So, following their trail, the attack was supposed to start from the inside as well as from the outside the city-state of Thebes. From the inside by the followers of Cybele and from the outside, by the army of the Dead," Hercules concluded.
"We need to inform my father, he needs know all this!" Meg felt the need to act, do at leas something to prevent all this.
"We'll do that, first thing tomorrow. But it's already getting late and we should all get some rest," Hercules pointed out and Cassandra nodded in agreement.
"So now we only have an army of Dead to beat. That should be a piece of cake!" Icarus optimistically announced, smiling from one ear to another. His three friends winced and looked at each other.
"Yeah. Hate to burst your bubble buddy, but I'm not sure if it's gonna be that easy," Hercules offered his friend an uneasy smile and Icarus' face fell as well.
All four of them were left wondering how did one exactly fight such army.
Later that evening, Meg had already changed into her light nightgown and she was sitting at their bed, brushing her hair when Hercules came to the room as well. She had taken a long bath, soaking the experience of those roaming hands of Barak away.
"Hey," Meg told him, glancing at him.
"Hey," he replied, placing a quick kiss on her cheek and sitting down next to her.
"Meg, why didn't you told me about Hades? That you saw him while I was gone?" Hercules asked with a sigh, finally alone with his beloved.
Meg winced uneasily. She had already forgotten about that part, so much had happen during the night.
"Oh, that. Yeah, ummm. I'm sorry, Herc. I really am. I didn't want to upset you or worry you. Being honest is obviously not one of my fortes and I really need to work on that part," Meg felt the shame burning her cheeks as she lowered her gaze.
"I'm no mad at you. I just wish you would share these things with me willingly," Hercules replied and somehow it only made Meg feel worse. He being disappointed felt because of her her much worse than him being mad at her.
"I'm sorry. It's not about you, it's like this instinctive thing for me. But I'll work on that," Meg solemnly promised and he rewarded her with a small smile.
"So, how are you feeling?" Meg asked at him, glancing at him worriedly.
"Ummm, you don't have to worry about me. You performed really well tonight. Like really well," Hercules told her honestly, still a little taken aback from what he had witnessed.
"Thanks. I'm sorry if I made you jealous," Meg shot him a side-way glance and Hercules blushed profoundly.
"I-, well, you did it for the right reasons," he stammered back at her.
"Yeah, I guess so. But coming back to your comment, that's basically what I have been doing my whole life. Performing, pretending to be what men had wanted me to be. And not just with Hades, even before I had to work for him and do his dirty work, my father basically exhibited me in his parties like I was just some object, not even a person," Meg replied with a sigh.
Suddenly it all made sense to Hercules. For all her life, men had only seen Meg's beauty, not even interested to get to know her personality. Which was sad considering she had the most biting wit, the kindest heart and the bravest soul Hercules had ever encountered. She was just so much more than just her looks.
"I'm sorry, that must have been hard," Hercules replied softly, placing his hand gently on her thigh.
"Well, it wasn't ideal, that's for sure. Just so you know, I might be putting up a performance when required, but you're the only man that actually gets an intimate contact with me," Meg circled her arms around his neck as she smiled at him seductively.
"I can live with that," Hercules replied back at her, placing his arms on her waist before pulling her in for a kiss.
-A/N: So, here we are with the next chapter and the plot thickens (at least I hope so). There are many new followers, which I'm grateful for. I wouldn't honestly have the motivation to update this fic quite as often without you guys, so thank you from the bottom of my heart!
So remember last time when I talked about going for a vacation and all that? Well, my vacation was cancelled due to certain circumstances taking place all over the world. In fact, I've stayed in a quarantine in my house for the last month. Oh what times we are living. Please stay safe and healthy, dear readers!
Reviewer shout-outs:
- Bad Jimmy: I'm glad to hear that you're enjoying this! Well, I think hetairas were most often described as entertainers for men: they played and danced for them and kept them some company. Somewhere they were actually compared to Japanese Geishas, but I'm not sure if that is quite correct.
- Disneylove12: Yes, I know: jealous Herc is way too funny!
- Sol99: Glad you like it!