🌸 A Scent To Rob Reason
6LS11: Kore swoons beside the pool, blossoming dreams into being.
If you’re new to this tale and curious about reading the whole thing, I do not recommend starting here. This chapter will spoil some earlier stuff if you know this in advance. 🤓
Also. Nobody calls Persephone by her true name. They call her KORE, “the Maiden,” and it’s pronounced like “ko-ray” or “kora” not like “core of the planet.”
Previously on 6 LITTLE SEEDS:
…when Demeter’s moonlit pool shimmered into view, it wasn’t the Mistress of Bounty who sat at the water’s edge, peering down into it.
It was her.
Did she know he was there? Could she feel him the way he could feel the ripples in the water that her fingertip made? He was quite certain she would be able to hear him. Heart pounding, Haides gulped down any reservations. Just get it over with. Fuck Demeter. Fuck Zeus. Just talk to Kore directly. Ask her to meet you on the dark moon. Now.
But she bolted upright and stared down into the pool again so suddenly that he choked on his words. Her hands gripped the stone. She drew in a determined breath. Before he could come up with an appropriate greeting, the Universe hummed with the power of her official invocation. A flower formed upon her lips. It glowed, a gold so pale and delicate it was nearly silver.
Then she said his name…
~From: Say My Name
—Start at the beginning
—Mature Content Warnings for this series
KORE, BRINGER OF BLOSSOMTIME
✨🌸✨
The Moon peeked her face over the treetops. Kore sat at the edge of the pool, trying to peer past her silvery reflection so she could make out that which lurked within its depths. It was a rare night when Mother allowed her to stay at water’s edge late enough to hear his song or catch a glimpse of him through the spring-fed pool. She didn’t expect to see him tonight. Selene’s radiance was far too bright—three days from full. The darker the moon, the clearer he was.
Still, it never hurt to listen for him. If she remained very still, even on the brightest nights she could sometimes hear his song, as if from the bottom of a deep well.
So she lay down on her favorite rock, staring at the reflection of the moon and stars with one finger tracing shapes in the warm water. She imagined that she traced it upon his breast, or upon the inside of his wrist. She imagined that his expression would melt along with his heart. As the cooler embrace of Night’s cloak drew up around her, a mist formed upon the surface like rising steam. “Oh, my valiant lord...” she murmured.
She dared not invoke his name. He might sense it.
And why would that be such a bad thing?
Mother might sense it, too.
But if it inspired him to come here...chariot rumbling, cape and hair whipping in the wind...marriage on his mind…
She knew full well that the Mistress of Harmonious Bounty and Natural Order would never let her only child marry the Wreaker of Rage. The Ender of Lives.
Perhaps he could be convinced to elope…
You don’t even know him. You’ve never so much as locked gazes with him, much less spoken to him.
No. But I KNOW in the way our songs meld together to form a perfect harmony. I know that he is beautiful and glorious and mine.
He could be hideous up close.
He couldn’t be. He’s an Olympian.
Here in the pool, he was always in silhouette. A shadow darker than shade, with the occasional flash of eyes or the glint of armor. Once, she had caught a clearer view of him, but his face had been covered by his helmet, so she only knew that he was dark and mighty, with a voice as deep as the night sky. That voice sent shivers up her spine and turned her knees liquid. His scent robbed her of reason. When the wind was right, she could catch a whiff of it off the water.
At first, she hadn’t known what it was, but then she discovered it by accident while accompanying Artemis on one of her hunting forays. The metallic tang. The putrid rot. Almost sweet. It had stopped their whole party in their tracks.
All but Athene.
The dryads had vomited mold and fled. Artemis had recoiled and covered her nose with her forearm, drawing signs of purification in the air.
“What is that?” Kore had asked, wanting to hide her nose as well, but unable to for her curiosity.
Athene had tossed her gleaming helmet. “That is the scent of violent death.”
Kore had scrambled up the hillside to gaze upon the gruesome sight strewn across the plain. Corpses. Limbs. Felled banners. Overturned chariots. Blood pooled and congealing in small lakes. Carrion birds and flies, with a host of new life squirming amongst the innards of man and beast alike.
Unable to blink, she had stood transfixed. Horror had waged its own war against intrigue and lost. “Is that...is that a battlefield?”
“It was a battlefield. Now it’s an abomination. ” As the Goddess of Wisdom and Warfare, Athene certainly knew about such things. She had crossed her arms over her armored breast. Her eyes had gone a cloudy grayish-blue. “This is my brother’s handiwork. The band he’s got panting after his skirts these days don’t even have the decency to clean up their mess. Ares just laughs about it. Irresponsible, irreverent, infantile little prick. No doubt he’s too busy celebrating up in his fortress, having his infantile little prick pleasured by that fanged, ichor-slurping slut while nymphs pour blood-nectar down his throat from their lips.”
Artemis had turned a queasy green at that thought.
Not Kore. She had been unable to banish the images from her mind ever since. Not just the battlefield, but the thought of blood-nectar.
And lips.
Mother had forbidden her to sample either pleasure. Divine nectar always offered a hint of euphoria upon consumption, but mixing it with sacrificial blood turned it into a powerful intoxicant. Human blood was said to be the most potent. Although Athene wouldn’t touch the stuff, she had sworn that Ares drank nothing else. He certainly had an easy source of supply, considering how many were slain in his name each day.
“Rampant battering-ram drunkard,” Athene called him, and, “Waste of divine flesh.” But what did she know about the worth of gods or their flesh? For all her expertise in crafting warfare and artisans’ works, the Armored Maiden had even less experience with the male half of Olympos than she did with blood-nectar—that is, up-close and…well…heated experience. The kind that intrigued Kore to distraction.
(Slamming gods on the ground and tying their limbs into knots until they yelped did not count.)
(Or—that is…it didn’t count if one only smashed their faces into the grass with one’s boot, then strutted away without a backwards thought.)
(A kind of…ahem…limb-tangly, sweat-inducing, heart-racing thought.)
Mother was no help in this matter. Whenever Demeter could be enticed into discussing the worth of gods, it was all lineage and rank and manners and breeding. It was also decidedly and intentionally not about their flesh.
So unhelpful.
So was Athene. One should be able to rely upon one’s eldest sister to fill in the forbidden gaps of knowledge. Athene had least sampled blood-nectar to know why she didn’t like it. Impassioned lips were another matter. Thankfully, Artemis had been able to explain how kissing was accomplished. The Goddess of the Hunt had kissed a few of her most cherished devotees—all female, for she and Athene had both sworn vows of eternal virginity.
Kore had not.
Would not.
Not ever. Especially not now.
She had found several chances to sneak away from the Protected Grove and spy on the God of War. Although there was so much she wanted to ask Ares, she had never rustled up the courage to speak to him—had never even dared utter his name. But she had seen him from afar while he tended his divine duties: mustering troops and whipping them into a frenzy, instigating conflict at treaty negotiations, hand-feeding his precious fire-breathing steeds the hearts of his conquered, replacing the bone-shards in his curry comb so he could tease the snarls, mud and blood from their manes and tails.
His hands were gentle when he groomed his horses, his voice too soft for her to hear.
No matter. She knew the sound of his song.
Both kinds of songs. The intimate and the raucous.
One morning, she had gotten to watch him ride to glorious victory on his ebon chariot, eyes aflame, armor aglow. Afterward, with a crack of golden reins, he had thundered away, battle won. She had picked through the aftermath, coaxing the suffering into the arms of Death as she drank in the scent.
His scent.
Now she understood that it was the combination of blood, mud, and decomposition she had smelled rising off the spring-fed pool, along with that intoxicating voice. Of all the Gods of the Upper Realms, only a few had eyes like night. Of all those, only one possessed the bearing of a powerful warrior, wore armor, and smelled of death.
Sitting up straight, she bent over the pool and looked into the reflection of the sky. Within all the black spaces, she imagined his dark form. And oh, the gleam of that gaze, more heavenly than the stars. Amidst battle, Ares’ eyes blazed like furious fire, but she had seen him across enough feast halls on Mount Olympos to know. When the God of War was calmed, his eyes were as dark as his hair.
Like they were when he was here in the water with her.
Here they were all black-soil depth with a luster as rich as harvest.
It had been ages since she had been allowed to attend any Olympian events where the gods of her generation might show up. Even then, she had always been corralled amidst a gaggle of handmaidens with the Queen of the Earth’s broad shadow menacing a great swath around her. All the gods had steered clear of that, much to Kore’s harrumphing. Mother only brought her to fertility rites or small Annual Feasts anymore—and lately, not even those, so the Bringer of Blossomtime could no longer count upon happenstance. A chance meeting at someone’s Millennium Celebration. “Ohhh, pardon my clumsiness as I trip straight into your arms. You’re Ares, aren’t you? Tee-hee.”
No.
It was time. It was so long past time.
Heedless if her mother should hear, she said with full summoning intention, “ARES.”
Nothing.
She stared into the pool and focused more intently.
“ARES.”
The breeze in the leaves neither stilled nor swelled. The night creatures went on singing their sweet songs.
“ARES, GOD OF WAR!”
Her voice smacked hollowly against the water and dissipated.
Her brows furrowed. Would she know if he sensed her call? Did he ever think of her? Did he even know of her existence?
Heaving a sigh, she huffed and flopped back down. Earth Mother’s protective warding was probably too great for her invocation to carry beyond the grove’s borders, so she lounged upon her rock to enjoy one last look at the night sky.
All too soon, Mother called her inside, so Kore tucked every thought of Ares into the farthest reaches of her heart and mind. After transpiring in her cloud-bower, she settled in for her devotional meditations on the rhythms of the life cycle. Demeter placed a kiss on her brow and pulled the filmy canopy closed around the bed, then faded away, humming a lullaby.
In the dark, with only the faint smattering of stardust and winking fireflies, Kore closed her eyes to fill her mind with whirling rainbow spirals and infinite kaleidoscopes. She breathed slowly, contentedly.
Yet she couldn’t focus on the spark of life.
The sights and scents of death kept piercing her thoughts.
Up Next: We find Haides:
💀 Taking Care of Business
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