Because so many of my original readers from the Speakeasy are as big of music-lovers as I am, we got into the habit of enjoying some honorable mention musical gems as an interlude between Acts. So go on, have yourself a beverage, a stretch, a dance, a snack.
Just stay away from the pomegranates, yo. (Unless you like it down here with us in the Underworld.)
🌸☠️✨😈✨☠️🌸
Aphrodite and all the Erotes celebrating a triumph party in the Temple of Love on Mount Olympos - Ode to Eros:
Oh, you didn’t know Eros had a bunch of golden, winged brothers, all Love Gods like him? Well, he does. Six of them, in fact. (Okay, okay, fine. There’s nobody quite like EROS, but they are all Love Gods.)
As for the Master Matchmaker’s latest plot, he has never worried about the Bringer of Blossomtime. Today she paints petals on stems, crooning, “He loves me…he loves me not…he loves me…he loves me not…” (Serendipitously, everything she paints always seems to land on, “He loves me,” of late.)
(“He does,” Eros whispers across her image in the Descrying Bowl.)
Since she has always been eternally open to loving and to being loved, she was all too easy to shoot.
The growly, jaded, workaholic god who was Fated as her match, on the other wing…
Joyest of joys, the Lord of the Underworld is also sentimental this eve.
Eros would love to claim himself as the cause for that, and he is for some of it. But not for all. The rest is simply the inmost nature of the prey he chose to strike with three deviously architected darts.
💀 🔥 🐶🐶 🐶 🔥💀
Along the reeking, reed-infested banks of the Akherousian Mere, the Hound of Darkness lolls, gnawing on the thigh bone of a slain drakon. Snarky snatches the bone out of Snuggly’s jaws so he can have a go at it. “Hey!” Barky snaps and tries for the bone, but Snarky is too far away, on the opposite shoulder out there, so Barky contents himself with gnawing on Snuggly’s ear instead.
Always a friend of the central head, the snake-tipped tail rises up to chomp Barky’s ear in return—precisely why they call that tail Chomps. This incites a full-body war. The hound chases his tail, the tail dances and weaves, and the cadre of smaller serpents on the mane go crazy, striking, spitting, hissing and biting. All three canine heads can’t decide who to chomp so they fight over the bone again.
Snarky wins. Winking his spotted eye, he tosses the bone to Snuggly so they can all get some teeth on it, and the tail coils up for a well-earned snooze.
The serpent mane, however, whispers and hiss-chuckles amongst itself, for down on the rock that juts out into the lake, an immense, godly form sprawls, casual in nothing but a pleated hip-wrap. Treat-Bringer Bone-Thrower rests his cheek on his arm, and his free hand traces shapes in the water in an uncanny echo of the one he loves. (Such an uncharacteristic act, but give the poor god a break. He just got shot in the heart by Eros.)
When he rolls onto his back, eyes fixed on the leagues and leagues and leagues of Earth between his body and hers, he begins to sing. His voice hums with the bliss of imagining. For the first time, hope surpasses the agony of his longing, because he Knows.
Soon.
She will be here with him very soon, and there is nothing in the Cosmos that can halt that now.
🌝🌗🌚
POST. SCRIPT.
Oh. Did you think it would be that simple? Then you’re either very cute, or you don’t know us very well… Yet.
Hekate sits down before the mess of their game board and pours herself a rewarding draught of blood-nectar. Beside her on the table rests a large, yellow feather. It used to glow golden, back when it resided neatly in the wing carriage of Eros, Overconfident God of Love.
No longer.
Since it matches her hunting tunic, she picks it up and strokes its soft filaments, wondering what sort of adornment she should make of it. Or perhaps a magical charm.
The full moon is fully risen now. She doesn’t need to see it. She can feel it, even down here.
Up there, Selene will turn her face away soon enough. Darkness will reign across the sky, and then everything will change.
The Threefold Lady adores change more than just about anything in the Cosmos, and this one promises to be particularly entertaining. It will alter the worlds from Below to Above. It will shift the trajectory of the Sun, and even change the flow of Time’s sands.
Licking her upper lip with an anticipatory giggle, she sets aside the feather and picks up one of the scattered game pieces. A granite horse. It’s part of the black set.
Hers.
She makes clattering-hoof noises with her tongue as she gallops it across the table. The horse rears in time with her loud neigh. When its hooves come down, it topples one of the grand fortresses that Haides favored. With an oh-so-satisfactory crashing-down noise, she places the horse atop the wreckage.
She takes a long sip from her silver cup. As the headiness of the blood-nectar works at the back of her skull, and the warmth massages her belly, a bit of the red liquid runs down her chin, reminiscent of what trickles from her favorite sacrificial offerings. She wipes at it, sucks it from her fingertips, leers. Lastly, she sets the horse in front of a larger fortress that remains standing.
It doesn’t matter that the Lord of the Underworld was winning at Rise and Fall for the past two hours of their match. It doesn’t matter if he rises up in victory to claim his rosy-cheeked bride against insurmountable odds—and he will. But he has already fallen.
In his wake, so will the rest of them.
And that concludes The First Seed: KORE & KLYMENOS.
Up Next:
🌸 Honeysuckle - The 2nd Seed Begins Here!
Previously in The 1st Seed: Spoilers ahoy! Earth Mother DEMETER works to arrange the marriage of her only child, the Bringer of Blossomtime. The girl’s name is PERSEPHONE but nobody calls her that. They call her “KORE”—the Maiden—for her birth name is plagued by a prophesy that says she will be made a bride by force and fall into Eternal Darkness. *cue sp…
Did you miss the First Act?
6 Little Seeds - Navigation: Start Here
Here you will find the navigation of my serial novel’s opening act, KORE & KLYMENOS. I’ll update it with every new installment I post, as well as any groovy geeking for your ease in finding it all. MATURE CONTENT WARNINGS. THE CHAPTERS 💘 Eros Diphues: Love of Two Forms
The entire playlist of songs that I put on broken-record mode for inspiration while working on this series:
© 2015 Hartebeast
Another great story