🌾 Gilded Tongues & Starry Eyes
6LS9: Demeter tells us how how it went when Apollo tried to woo her daughter into marriage
Previously on 6 LITTLE SEEDS:
Demeter’s eyes smoldered as they took in her daughter’s blushing cheeks. “We already had our bath together this morning. Why did you need another?”
Kore tossed off a strained, toothy grin. “Well, see, I danced extra hard while I was painting blossoms and then I slipped on some moss covering a boulder—you know how weak my ankles are.” Another ingratiating cringe.
Another unimpressed glower. “Mm-hmm.”
“Well, I slipped and got covered in mud and so I took another bath, and then…w-when I sensed someone’s eyes upon me, it felt so much like Artemis’ vibration. I thought it would be amusing to exchange her chiton for a crown of pink rosebuds—you know how much Artemis hates pink. But it wasn’t her.”
“No. It most certainly was not.”
“How was I to know it would be her brother? The only immortals who can enter our grove are those invited by you, and you only ever invite goddesses here and so...” Kore flashed another hopeful grin.
“So Apollo saw you bathing and you rendered him naked.”
“Must go! Leaves won’t do for Little Lordling Light.” Kore flung a smooch in Demeter’s direction and vanished again.
—Start at the beginning
—Mature Content Warnings for this series
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.”
DEMETER, EARTH MOTHER, MISTRESS OF BOUNTY
✨🌾✨
The buzz of the day had stilled, and the evening hum made its first tentative forays into the dusk. The night-blooming flowers released their fragrant sighs. Frogs and crickets chirruped in ones and twos until the evening drone arose.
Into this peaceful song, Demeter’s guffaw clanged.
Her daughter’s laughter was just as loud, and sharp with mischief. “And did you see his face? He looked like a pigeon stuffed with a year’s worth of grain.” Kore puffed out her cheeks and crossed her bulging eyes. Mimicking Apollo’s reserved tenor, she quoted through pursed lips, “‘Well, I thank you, good goddesses, and I bid you good night.’”
Mother and daughter lay at the edge of the barley field between the oak grove and the orchard of figs, pressing their heads together and chortling. “I was afraid,” Demeter wheezed, “that we were going to be in for a ten-hour torture session of poetry, rumination, and serenading like he made for his and Artemis’ last Century Feast, but you knew how to handle the likes of him. That truly was brilliant, darling. Brilliant.” She kissed the hair at Kore’s temple.
The girl giggled. “Well, he caressed the strings of that tortoise-shell lyre like Aphrodite wooing a lover, mooning over it with far more interest than he showed for me.”
“Indeed, he did,” Demeter grumbled.
“Everyone says how vain he is about his music, so I figured why allow him his grandiose buildup? In letting him think I was desperate to hear him sing, he puffed up even more. All the quicker to prick his pride.” As Kore’s lips made a popping noise, the handful of fireflies in her hair obliged her by winking out at the same time. She laughed in delight. So did they, which brought back their natural pulsing rhythms. Kore rolled her eyes. “My desperation only revolved around seeing the back of him—the best angle, to be certain. Ugh! Why is he so popular amongst all the maidens?”
“He’s not. He’s popular amongst nymphs, mortals, and loose half-breeds with no dignity.”
“Mother, such spite!” Grinning, Kore rolled back into the tall grasses to watch the Sun God’s departing bow and the last streams of the Hesperides’ nighttime show. The trio of nymphs had painted a masterful sunset of gilded violets and pinks in the wake of Helios’ fiery chariot. Now they laid out a welcome of purples and blues as the Goddess of Night drew her veil up behind the eastern treeline. “Well, I’m just glad that it only took nine songs for him to realize that his renowned golden tongue and come-hither eyes weren't getting anywhere with me.”
“As am I, my honeysuckle. As am I.”
“I must admit, that lyre would have been a grand wedding gift. And can you believe he offered me a temple, a city, and a whole island?”
Demeter snorted. “You shall win cities and islands by your own divine inspiration, daughter mine. Temples shall be erected unto you across all the nations of all the lands. We simply must find you the ideal match, the correct mate for a goddess as beautiful and powerful as you are. Once you have blossomed into the full glory of your gifts, then all the world shall behold you and tremble.”
Kore’s eyes lowered as she blushed. “Well, Apollo is certainly beautiful and powerful himself. But nothing he has to offer is worth an eternity shackled to…” She made the puffy-face again.
Laughing, Demeter propped herself up on an elbow and listened to the girl go on about all the reasons she could never endure marriage to Apollo. Yet a cautionary note pricked at the back of Earth Mother’s mind. In refusing him, Kore remained as vulnerable as ever to that menacing birth prophesy.
The single most important decision in an immortal maiden’s life was her choice in mate. Pick the wrong one and—
Demeter scowled, for she and her own mother were proof of that, both as daughters of violent fathers, and mothers of children made under dubious circumstances. So Earth Mother determined to shatter that tradition once and for all, along with that prophesy. It loomed out there on the horizon within the ever-growing shadows.
Even so, the thought of giving Kore to that pompous young plucker of strings and nitwit hearts? Great Gaia, never. Demeter’s smile flooded with pride over her daughter’s immunity to Apollo’s charms. Besides, in order to prove the predestined words wrong, Kore had to be a willing bride. Enthusiastic would be best.
The girl sighed and shook her head. “Poor Apollo. I don’t mean to be cruel. He’s not awful. He simply tries too hard. But I can’t encourage him. He doesn’t sing the right song. I’ll know it when I hear it—the song of the god whose immortal thread has been intertwined with mine by the Fates.”
Demeter squashed her rolling eyes and refrained from shaking her own head. Ah, the naïveté of misty-eyed godlings. She wove a supportive note around her voice as she said, “I’m sure you will, darling.” They lay in quiet comfort for a time, enjoying the sky’s transition from purple to midnight blue. Into the nighttime lullaby, Kore said, “Mama?”
“Hmm?”
“Moonrise is early tonight. May I stay out to watch Selene dance her beams across the pool?”
“Ever a glutton for a dance show.”
“Anything for a dance show.”
The anticipation of those moonbeams made Kore’s eyes glow far more brightly than they had over Apollo, so Demeter raised her arms in a long stretch, then leaned over to lay a kiss upon her daughter’s brow. “Enjoy it if you like, and then it’s time for your meditation.”
“Yes, Mama. I’ll be in soon.”
As Kore scampered away, Demeter slowly got up and strolled through the field, monitoring the health of the plants, asking them about their day, and providing encouragement. She did the same while wandering amongst the fig trees. Several of them sensed her hunger and lowered their branches, offering up any fruits at the peak of tasty ripeness. She sampled several from different trees and hummed in gratitude. Her fingers trailed the trunks in approval of how delectable this grove had grown. They, in turn, offered leafy kisses and caresses.
At last, she arrived at the treetop cottage where she found the fireflies diligently awaiting her. They danced and wiggled at the sight of Earth Mother, then zoomed into the folds of her garments. “Come now, my darlings, my dears,” she murmured, then transpired inside Kore’s room to prepare the girl’s bed.
With a little shake of her veil and gown, she released the glowing insects into the sheer canopy that surrounded the mattress of captured cloud. The fireflies streamed out and arranged themselves like pulsing miniature constellations under which to pass the hours of darkness, something Demeter never allowed Kore to do outside anymore.
The Harvest Mistress stood for a moment, mooning over the bed. The sight was so lovely, yet bittersweet. Under other circumstances, the cozy nest could have presented quite the love bower, a use which Demeter determined to suspend for her daughter until a flawless match presented itself.
It had to be flawless. Only the perfect match could counteract the old prophesy.
...Sky shall turn his head aside
As violent-made the maid ‘comes bride
Chained and splayed upon his wall
Dragged to unrecovered fallAnd she to rest her silver’d head
Where oath-making stream is fed
Where souls have no need of sleeping
All shall rue her mother’s—
Demeter glowered and huffed those cursed words away. The Sky King always turned his head aside, pretending he didn't notice any ills threatening their child. He was an ill influence himself, but everything was ever-so-far beneath him if it didn't forward his almighty plans. Those shifted as quickly as the breeze.
No, when it came to protecting Kore from suffering, imprisonment, and the doom of extinction, Demeter was quite alone. She refused to allow her daughter to endure the lessons she herself had learned the hard way—falling prey to foolish infatuation over a well-muscled chest, a gilded tongue, and star-filled eyes, only to be discarded for pursuit of the next pretty thing.
The consequences for the Bringer of Blossomtime would be far more dire than a broken heart.
Soul of Nightshade, Bride of Rot
Cursed, her seed, a woeful lot
Dancing, singing, overjoyed
All is nurtured, all destroyed...
Thankfully, Kore was wiser about these things than Demeter had been while she was still green enough to dream of Fated Love.
Perhaps I should tell her about the prophesy. She's old enough now, and if she understands that even the most fleeting flirtation with the wrong god could spell her doom...
But the last thing Demeter wanted was to destroy Kore's tranquility and joy by plaguing her mind with all these dark things.
With a forlorn sigh, Earth Mother stretched out across the feather-strewn cloud and pulled the curtain closed. The canopy was made of spun mist and starlight, so it shifted and sparkled with her every breath. Like the room, it was imbued with protective spells. Here in the top tower of the house—a windowless, doorless hideaway into which only mother and daughter could transpire—the rosy-cheeked Bringer of Blossomtime spent her nights in meditative reverie until the safer hours of daylight.
Demeter gazed up at the fireflies’ gentle pulse. She never took repose beneath the stars anymore either. They belonged to him.
Her gaze narrowed, then hardened. The acid in her gullet burst into downright flames.
Before she tore the entire canopy to bits, she retreated to her own chamber. She didn’t want to frighten the fireflies or anyone else who might wind up in the path of her destruction, should it unleash, so she sat down to do some therapeutic weaving. The repetitive and functional act always helped calm her.
Yet the ancient golden chest in the corner kept niggling at her attention. It wasn’t covered in dust—her servants would never allow such a thing. But Demeter had not opened it in centuries. Her old armor from the Titanomachy was buried in that chest. It would be a simple thing to alter it for Kore.
Athene and Artemis had sworn vows of chastity and seemed to only be gaining in power. Kore’s half-sisters seemed more joyful and vibrant every time they came to visit.
Persephone…
The breeze drifting in from the window teased with that ill-fated name. Kore’s complicated, contradictory birth-name.
Bringer of Blossomtime.
Bringer of Destruction.
She Who Nurtures; She Who Destroys.
Sprite of Light.
The Thresher.
Demeter’s eyes landed on the chest again. What would happen if she armed her daughter and sent the girl to train with her brash, striding, warlike half-sisters? Or brought them here to the grove? If Kore was not sworn to chastity, if she remained eligible as a bride, someone could take her.
Would take her.
Violent made the maid ‘comes bride…
Demeter had a pretty good idea who the prophesy might indicate. He’d only been sending marriage proposals for centuries, no matter how many times he was ignored. Such a relentless fiend.
Sky shall turn his head aside...
Both of them. Relentless. Ruthless. Self-serving.
No, Kore’s father would never allow her to swear chastity. He’d already lost the bargaining power of two daughters and it chafed him, for Artemis and Athene had sworn their vows behind his back. What was done was done now, but not for Kore.
The last time Earth Mother had run into Zeus, he had said they needed to “have a chat over nectar sometime” so they could “discuss Kore’s future.” Demeter had been putting him off for moons but she knew she couldn’t avoid him forever. She just had to find the right match!
Her fingers flew faster and faster upon the loom. Her breathing grew harder. Louder. More volatile. Seed-scatterer supreme. Feckless father. Hammer-fisted, damned son-of-Kronos!
Demeter tried so hard to keep her feelings to herself, to refrain from speaking ill of Kore’s sire or disparaging the beauty and power of the sky in front of the girl. But that didn’t mean she had to encourage Zeus’s influence upon their child any more than their few interactions had already wrought. Better that Kore enjoyed the Sky King’s sights from afar, lying safely in the arms of well-harnessed clouds and makeshift stars that could never harm her.
As for Demeter…well, Zeusy had learned long ago that it was in his best interest to steer clear of her as often as possible. When their paths had to cross for official ceremonies or at parties hosted by their mutual friends and family, he never failed to ooze his compliments and innuendos through his slick mouth.
The Queen of the Earth never failed to deflect them with a demeanor as abrasive as sandstone. And if he insisted on that “chat,” she would remind him who the real Earth-Shaker of the family was.
Up Next: SAY MY NAME - Haides takes his confounded marriage matters into his own hands.
Did you miss that ominous birth-prophesy?
Or would you rather start at the beginning?
The entire playlist of songs that I listen to for inspiration while working on this series:
—On YouTube
—On Spotify
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