⚔️ Persephone.
L&W17: In the Temple of War, they're not afraid to speak that dread name.
Previously on 6 LITTLE SEEDS:
…The God of War didn’t even annihilate anybody. He just snatched a full goblet out of the nearest hand and strode for the comfort of his throne.
A pulse of energy hit him before he got there.
Discordant and jagged, it whooshed past his feet and slammed into his guts. Grunting, he halted in his tracks, struck with intoxication, nausea, and an instantaneous, ecstatically painful hard-on.
What in the storm-puking pit?
On the wall behind the altar, an immense sculpture was embedded into the rock, made of countless polished skulls—human, horse, dog, all creatures fallen in battle. They drew the shape of one great ominous, human skull. The blank spaces for the eyes, nose, and wide, leering mouth were set with oil lamps. Nobody ever put flame to the wicks of those lamps.
They only ignited when somebody had done something that would incite war.
And not just any kind of war.
Divine war.
—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.”
ARES, GOD OF WAR
💥⚔️💥
As that whooshing pulse set the Grin of Imminent War alight, along with Ares’ ichor, the temple denizens roared approval. They lifted cups, rattled weapons, and burst into a menacing, murmured chant as they crept toward their patron god. “Ares…Ares…Ares…”
He flipped up a couple fingers and tossed his head in acknowledgement, drinking in their worship. But something else had been erected besides his rod. As he finally got a chance to analyze what was pumping out of that flaming sculpture, all the hair at the back of his neck stood up in alarm.
He knew that distinctive vibration all too well. It had whipped the fleeing backside of him all through his youth. It had blasted the ground a hair’s width from his feet. It had singed off the crest of his helmet more times than he could count. Now it set his teeth to singing and made his nose twitch.
The stench of ozone was unmistakeable, too.
Ares’ eyes closed in a wince. Shit, piss, pus, and blood. Had Zeus found out about Kore already? How did the conniving prick always know? Was nothing sacrosanct anymore? Could he never escape the ever-watchful eyes of the sky-minions, even underground?
He would need silence, solitude, and considerable amounts of blood sacrifice to find out exactly who was about to go to war with whom, and over what.
Unfortunately, he already had a few suspicions, because other too-familiar scents seeped into the room, and they were exactly the last ones Ares wanted to smell in combination with the ozone. Bloody earth, blackened wood, torched fields, and decomp—some of his all-time favorite scents, but not when they were accompanied by sulfur, vaporized stone, and wet rot.
And the faintest hint of roses.
Roses from the cursed, scheming Temple of Love, in fact. There was never any mistaking those.
Fuck-shit-fuck. Just what I need. Kore’s parents pissed off and making arrangements for me with the Tormentor of Tartaros because my devious lady and my own fluttering spawn can’t resist playing pranks on me.
This was no mere Olympian bickering and backstabbery at work. That never-ending flood kept the Temple of War’s torches burning, and fed over half of the floor’s snarling vibration. The other half came from the contention seeping in from the Mortal Realm. Quarrels there and on the Mount flared and spat as regularly as logs popping in a hearth.
But something had just snapped the final cord of some frayed rope. Normally, Ares would be dancing on his altar to hear of another war between the gods.
But normally, his temple didn’t reek with whiffs of the recently departed Blossomtime, compounded by Harmony, Rainbows and now, Love.
Oh, just smite me already.
Ares collapsed onto the couch, spewing every profanity he knew. Considering how many languages he’d taken it upon himself to master—the swear-words, at least—the filth flowed for a length of time that even impressed him. It earned him a standing ovation from every direction. He tossed his head, devouring the waves of glorification like a feast after battle—or this case, before it—then proceeded to drown himself in drink while he could.
He only hoped the message he had sent to Demeter was enough to keep him from being castrated by her blade, blasted into ash by Zeus’ bolts, and tossed into the Underworld’s River of Fire to be dragged down to Tartaros. If he was ever able to reanimate himself after that, no doubt he’d have a cage waiting for him right next to his Great-Uncle Titans. Yes, a nice adamantine cage with unbreakable chains made by the Divine Smith himself.
My favorite.
Hephaistos was Ares’ little brother and Aphrodite’s ex-husband, and he’d never forgiven them for catching them in bed together. Heph had laid a trap to confirm his suspicions, ensnaring them in those chains and stringing the adulterers up for all of Olympos to ridicule.
Ares had no interest in another go with those chains. He had even less interest in being blasted, demoted, and imprisoned for eternity.
With a glance up to check on the wall sculpture, he saw. Yup. The glow inside the skull’s eyes, nose, and screaming mouth was only growing stronger, not waning. The thing looked like it was laughing at him.
“Bloody lovely. I’m about to be fucked with my grandfather’s sickle.” When he noticed Phobos and Deimos leering at him, he lifted his cup in salute to the first children the Goddess of Love had borne him—dark, fanged, gristly twins conceived from their parents’ fear of getting caught amidst the making of them. “Curse your mother and her damned, double-edged gifts.”
The boys replied with matched chuckles and bloody-toothed grins, then clinked his goblet with their claws. (The feral little bastards rarely bothered with cups when they drank.)
Even so, Ares’ eyes wouldn’t stop returning to the smear of blood on the floor. The way Kore had bent over to examine his handiwork...how dark and lustrous her eyes had gone at the sight…the perfection of her upraised ass, and the way she’d gazed at his altar…at his battle-smeared body…the way she’d touched him…
The scent of orange blossoms and wet earth still lingered in the air, mixing with the stenches of impending war. He had to admit, the combination was intoxicating. Pure cursed aphrodisiac. His tongue trailed across his lips. The honey of her kiss mingled perfectly with the blood-nectar. It raised his rod all over again.
Well, if he was going to be doubly smitten, first by Kore and then by her parents, he supposed he should at least enjoy his final hours as War Incarnate. He would have to seek out Eris and the playthings.
Soon.
Soon, my darling, soon…
The echo of Kore’s bell-tones wormed into his ear and latched. Contracting at the center with a low groan, he dropped his brow into his hands, because he couldn’t get the images out of his head. Being shackled to the Bringer of Blossomtime. Being shackled by her. Now there was a use for his brother’s chains! He could teach her how to wield all of his striking implements upon deserving flesh. Like Discord’s.
Like his.
He had no doubt she could be a savage with any number of torture devices. The ravaging of her tongue came to mind. Because “Kore” wasn’t actually her name. It was only a title.
They didn’t speak of it up the Starlit Staircase—the translation of her true name. When pronounced one way, it meant, “The one who tends that which is in motion.” Out in far-flung places and rural villages, mortals still called her “Mistress” and “She Who Nurtures the Rhythms of Life.”
If life had been the extent of it, Demeter probably would have stuck with calling her daughter “Persephone” after her birth.But Earth Mama couldn’t handle the full truth of her darling little monster. Nurturing the living was only half of that girl’s name, just as it was only half of the cycle. The other half…
Well, the only types who pronounced her name that way were the dark and ruinous. Ares’ crowd.
“The One Who Strikes Down.”
“The Bringer of Destruction.”
“The Thresher.”
Persephone in her full glory was “She Who Nurtures; She Who Destroys.”
And I just taught The Destroyer how to wield my blade before the Altar of War.
That blazing wall-skull was proof of it. He could feel it in the soles of his feet. Those fires were burning on account of her. That’s why her scent wouldn’t dissipate. The saccharine odors of Harmonia, Iris, Hermes—they were long gone.
But not Persephone’s.
As it combined with the other stenches pumping out from the Grin of Imminent War, it only grew stronger, reminding him over and over of how it had felt to drown inside her kiss.
Far off in the safety of his drunken throng, he caught the hushed, awed murmur of her name—her real name. Safety, hah. Somebody else picked it up, and then it was sweeping through his temple like an ill-fated breeze.
Ares shook his head. More the fool them, to utter that dread name so whimsically. So brazenly. God of War or not, even he found himself hesitant to swig a full draught from The Destroyer’s cup.
He hated her for that.
Craved her for it just as much.
After downing the rest of his blood-nectar, he thumped the cup on a table and strode through the writhing clash of bodies, aroused by how disturbed he was; disturbed by how much she aroused him.
UP NEXT: COMING TO A HEAD - Kore’s mother confronts her about sneaking out of the Protected Grove, and about the scents of Ares all over her.
Curious to start at the first chapter now?
6 Little Seeds: Start Here
This is the one. HER. Flawless. Of course she is. She is divine. So lithe. So fair, with rose-gold hair, her leaf-green eyes aglow. Ah, such temptation, if you have the stones to make a try for her. There she dangles from the highest branch. Irresistible. Succulent. Ripe for the swiping. Clueless. She weaves a symphony by which to dance. From boulder to boulder, she springs across the stream. Her tiny toes alight upon stone: a patch of moss appears. Behind her, a trail of fuzzy, green footprints wends its merry way from this wooded bank to that. A distinctive mark. Here pranced Persephone...
For your bookmarking ease of The 2nd Seed:
6LS2: Love & War - Navigation
For your bookmarking ease Persephone & Haides. We know that old tale—or do we? Eros, the Master Matchmaker has been working to unite the Bringer of Blossomtime with the King of the Dead for eight hundred confounded years! If you missed The First Seed
The entire playlist of songs that I listen to for inspiration while working on this series:
—On YouTube
—On Spotify
© 2015 Hartebeast
What a cool take on the pantheon and its many intersecting threads of intrigue.
I really dig this: "Ares collapsed onto the couch, spewing every profanity he knew. Considering how many languages he’d taken it upon himself to master—the swear-words, at least—the filth flowed for a length of time that even impressed him. It earned him a standing ovation from every direction. He tossed his head, devouring the waves of glorification like a feast after battle—or this case, before it—then proceeded to drown himself in drink while he could."