💀 Say My Name

6LS10: Haides takes his confounded marriage matters into his own hands

Previously on 6 LITTLE SEEDS:

“You can all fuck yourselves straight into the pit,” Haides snapped. “Vulgar desecrators.”

The laughter only intensified, pelting him from every side, overhead, and below.

“Bwa-har-har-har!”

“Tss-hss-hss-hssssss…”

“Whufff-whuff-snuff-snortle-guffaw!”

Haides stepped onto the reeking mud of the bank, vaporizing the wetness from his legs and apron, which at least helped alleviate how closely the spidersilk clung to him. He considered vaporizing himself, but that would look like fleeing, and if there was one thing that Olympian-born lords did not do, it was flee in their own realms.

Especially this one.

Pack of slavering jackals. At least it wasn’t petty, bickering Olympos. Thankfully, the beast of his libido had been tossed its bone, so he could finally wrangle it back into its cage for a little while longer.

“I’m getting some supper,” he snapped, striding down the embankment. He paused at the edge of the water long enough to snarl, “Then I’ll be back.”

He could tell by the hush that answered—everyone knew what that meant…

~From: Denizens of the Great Below

—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.” KLYMENOS is one of Haides’ gazillion epitaphs. It means “illustrious” (or depending on who’s grumbling it, “notorious.”)

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Down at the Akheron again

HAIDES, LORD OF THE UNDERWORLD, KING OF THE DEAD

🔥💀🔥

He left every one of those irreverent sniggerers behind and strode into the solitude of his throne room. Back straight. Head erect. Smoldering gaze aimed front. At his passing, the mica dust that swirled through the dusky walls, walkways, and furniture straightened up into tidier formation. So, too, did the floating globes of ignited corpse-aither—one of Haides’ more ingeniously diabolical inventions, which was saying something.

Some of the most dastardly doers who came under his eye required protracted correction before they would be purified enough to take their ease and get in line for reincarnation. For those who had earned a lighter sentence, Haides damned them to light his home for a century. The harpies tore their souls apart and deposited them into the claws of the Furies, who wadded the eternal, glowing pieces up inside a ball of cursing. Finally, the river-nymphs of the Pyriphlegethon set them perpetually ablaze to combat the gloom of the palace interior.

Not pleasant for the souls in question.

Quite pleasant for the sensitive nocturnal eyes of the Underworld’s residents, including its lord. The globes cast pale glows in a variety of hues. The tiny, unceasing screams they emitted could really only be felt, rather than heard. Such grating vibration always calmed Haides’ spirit when he was agitated.

Like tonight.

The little lights gathered, chandelier-like, to illuminate his formal dais of cooled lava. The broad platform was inlaid with ruby-eyed skulls who stared up into the dark expanse of the ceiling. Center-stage, the golden throne gleamed in marked contrast, encrusted as if the geode bowels of the earth had vomited all its sparkle upon it. The plumpest seat cushion fluffed up and warmed itself in welcome.

Haides ignored it as though he couldn’t be bothered with such self-indulgence when there was a domain to rule.

He only hoped no one could tell how hard his heart was still pounding as he paced before the dais like Kerberos in a cage. Not that the Lord of the Underworld ever imprisoned his pet monster. Haides had been known to station the hound in an interrogation cell for added menace (and entertainment), but he would never lock Kerb up.

He paused to glower. Although the mutt’s conduct today may warrant it. Chortling ingrate.

In truth, he couldn’t blame any of their laughter or ribbing. That had been some load he’d blown into the riverbank, and he didn’t want to banish the memory of the Bringer of Blossomtime ablaze. Not yet. He wanted to wrap himself up in the flagrant images. They were as as intoxicating as blood-nectar, as inviting as a hearth-warmed blanket woven of aphrodisiac threads.

But it was better to put all thoughts of Kore aside so he could do what was required of him. The dead, after all, never stopped dying.

If he went down for a stiff draught from the River Lethe, that could only wipe the memory from his mind temporarily, but it would be long enough to get him back on track. When the images trickled back, they would be dulled, easily set aside.

Until they weren’t.

Then he would find himself down at the Akheron again.

Too bad the girl’s loftier father would laugh himself even sillier at the notion…

Poor Klymenos…

Where the Lethe failed, there was always Styx. Her words dropped a different kind of blanket over him. Drenched and icy. Jagged and cutting. Probably the best thing for him, but tonight he couldn't let it go. The echo of Kore’s moans and especially that rapturous cry…all that flying rose-gold hair and the inferno of her climax…

Damn me to my own pits.

His fists clenched and he paced harder. His helmet felt too tight on his forehead, deepening the furrows of his brow.

He was the only blasted Olympian imprisoned and alone. Gotta make sure he posed no threat to his siblings’ almighty power-structures and their in-fighting, back-stabbing, petty, greedy games. But now the goddess who inflamed him like no other had reached her ripening. Young, upstart pricks had been vying for her hand up there for centuries. Kore’s newfound awakening would only stoke it into a pitched frenzy.

Yeah, like the frenzy pitchin’ yer apron into a tent? Bwa-har-har-har…

Once Demeter made her decision, it would be too late.

Too bad her mother uses your name as her most volatile curse-word…

…as impotent as all the useless little swimmers in his ball-sack…

The lava in the pit of Haides’ stomach surged upward in an overheated blast of, “Fuck!” The shockwaves of his rage quaked out around him, shaking every piece of furniture and every hunk of rock thrust upward or down in the chamber. Before he laid waste to the place, he transpired upon the banks of the Pyriphlegethon wearing nothing but his immortal skin.

Into the River of Fire he dove. It seared like ice and he gasped. A mouthful of the thick, molten rock flooded his mouth. He gulped it down, winced at the glacial stripping of his throat before the unbearable heat hit. Then it was just pressure, pressure, pressure, and blessed, rapturous warmth. Down he dove. Down…down… He sat cross-legged on the bottom of the river, letting the inferno rush past him until it had peeled hunks of his flesh from his skeleton.

At last, the calm seeped in along with the warmth.

He stayed like that until he had rectified himself.

His eyes opened. A few ethereal daimons floated around him, hair like flickering flame, eyes like oblivion. Beautiful fire-fish swam in schools; monstrous fire-fish swarmed and tore at anything that moved. When Haides stood up, they gnawed on the fleshy patches of his legs. He shooed them away. Had to shake a persistent one off and flick it across the river.

He launched, surfaced, and swam hard against the lava’s flow. This was no slow creep, but a raging roar of liquid fire. He spent another hour in a good, hard battle upstream to burn off any lingering residue. Then he stopped, splashed onto his back, and let Pyriphlegethon embrace him. The molten river god carried him all the way downstream to where the fire met the rush of the Kokytos’ icy flow. There in the maelstrom, Haides fought against the cacophonous waves and churning, beating froth.

Once he had pried them apart and held them long enough for satisfaction to take hold, he exhaled. The rivers slammed back together—slammed him to the floor of the basin. He kept going, slipped through time and deviated, arriving back in his throne room as though nothing had happened.

Well, nothing except the disappearance of his armor, as well as half his flesh and hair.

With a long exhalation, he recomposed himself, but he didn’t bother changing his gruesome visage. Who was here to be appalled? Nobody. He blew out several more breaths.

Then his head fell forward. Damnation.

The old rages had been bubbling up too often of late. So had all those old ghosts. Not the multitude he oversaw in the Underworld. Those old ones up there. He had banished it all for a solid millennium, throwing himself equally into his duties and recreations. Sometimes he combined them, taking diabolical pleasure as he tormented evildoers down in Tartaros or in the River of Fire.

What could he say? He had not earned the moniker King of Cruelty for his merciful nature. Neither did they call him the Tormentor of Tartaros for his baking skills.

Or rather, not for baking rose-petal cakes anyway.

That thought conjured up the very face he was trying to forget—blasted blossoms! A huff shot from his lips and hit the clump of hair that always managed to work its way free of his clasps. It was scraggly now, crispy from the Pyriphlegethon. Shoving the hair from his eyes, he stomped into the formal dining room.

He made a sardonic bow at the empty spot across from his golden platter and cup, then yanked back his dining chair. The moment he thumped his rump down, the feast materialized, a collection of his exact desires for this moment. He dug into the rejuvenating ambrosia first, then sank his teeth into six different types of meat. Once he could feel the rejuvenation of his vitality, he slowed and set to dining like the king he was.

Well, like a grisly ghoul of a king.

The emptiness of the spot opposite him snagged his gaze again. He growled around his hunk of boar—the oversized, fanged kind—then chomped it down. No one had ever sat in that chair, for he had never invited any of his lovers to this table, and his friends knew better. Whenever he treated the handful of his dalliances to a stamina-replenishing feast, he ordered it served in some remote locale.

Never here in his home.

His never-used bed was the same. He slept anywhere but there, and as for other activities…

That room remained locked tight, for the only goddess who had ever inspired thoughts of opening it dwelled out of reach, across the Impassable Threshold in a woodland fortress guarded by one of the most unreasonable beasts Haides had ever encountered: Great Ravening Mother.

Great Glittering Father wasn’t any better.

Haides’ relations with both of Kore’s parents were as rocky and tumultuous as that vortex where the River of Ice met the River of Fire. Like Styx had said, Zeus would laugh himself silly if the Lord of the Underworld sent a message, asking to marry the Sky King’s most eligible daughter. Kharon’s best guffaw had nothing on the thunderous laughter that would roll through the halls of Olympos. It would be audible all the way down here.

Good King Zeusy can suck his own bolt. There was no way Haides would ever give that little bastard the satisfaction.

He polished off his meal, topped it with one those damned rose-petal cakes, then stared at the silver carafe of blood-nectar. He sat there with his eyes fixed on it for longer than he should have.

The golden carafe behind it was full of plain nectar. Every full moon, the Shining One’s wife sent down several amphorae of the heady Olympian import that she produced, managed, and distributed. Haides altered it into a drink of the Underworld with three drops of his own ichor. Aglow with sweetness and light, it was the wiser choice, especially for another evening of work.

But the table knew what its king wanted as well as what he needed. Like a proper tormentor, it had provided him with both, leaving the decision in his hands.

Interesting that it had not provided a pitcher of forgetting from the Lethe.

Haides glared at the table and clenched both fists. He couldn’t help staring at the forefinger of his left hand. The bulbous ruby that decorated the ring there had been a gift from Demeter upon their victory over the Titans. She had been merely the Princess of Grove and Field then, militant and merciless, laying waste with her golden sword from the back of her drakon-driven chariot. He had been an enraged young god of the shadows, wreaking pestilence, death, and wrath wherever he could.

They had been the best of friends, working in treacherous tandem. There was even that one night after a particularly violent triumph when Haides had thought maybe…

But no. There had never been anyone who shone more brightly in Demeter’s eyes than Zeus. After the Titans had been locked up in Tartaros, the Mistress of Bounty and Fertility had laid it all at the feet of the Sky King. In return, all Zeus had given her was a swift tumble through the clouds and an even sharper drop, made heavier by a swollen belly she had been left to manage alone.

Ultimately fortuitous, as that dalliance had produced the Bringer of Blossomtime.

But after that, Demeter had snarled at anyone who sported a spear between his legs, no matter their intention, and Haides’ interests had lain elsewhere. The best outcome, really, for the Queen of the Earth was too unyielding. Too unforgiving. And when angered, too vicious.

Yeah, and who does that sound like?

Exactly. We’re too alike to have ever made a good match. We were always best as close companions. Partners in battle. Confidantes.

With a wistful sigh, he traced the smooth face of the ruby in his ring. Then he poured himself a small measure of blood-nectar, lifted it into the air, and murmured, “To you, De-De. I hope you can ever find peace, living up there under his thumb.”

After downing the tasty draught, Haides restored his visage to perfection and donned a formal chiton—a floor-length one of spidersilk and thread-of-gold. He forewent the menacing headdress of horns-and-thorns, and even the spidersilk diadem of his kingship in favor of keeping his hair managed by a simple gold circlet dotted with obsidian and another large ruby. With a bit of extra concentration, he steam-pressed his waist-length curls and beard into perfect ringlets, caught here and there in tiny silver and gold clasps. He added a hint of glimmer to the tresses, turning the ashy Underworld tones to nearly silver.

There.

Demeter would appreciate the effort, stickler for protocol, humility, and decorum that she was.

When he appeared on the shores of the Akherousian Mere once more, he sat down on the bank and gazed into the water, using his reflection to tidy the most difficult transformation of all: any echo of his old smile that she might recall and warm to.

It just looked brittle to him.

There wasn’t anything he could do about that. Too much time had fixed his expression into what it was, so it was going to have to do.

Besides, it wouldn’t matter. There was no way he could build the conduit tonight. The dark moon was too far away. But one never knew about Olympian goddesses. If anybody could combine forces with him and establish a communication channel through the overlapping depths of their realms, it would be Demeter, so on the off chance that he found himself beneath her eye, it couldn’t hurt to put on his most formal face.

He straightened his spine and forewent the smile. Poise and majestic familiarity then. The King of Shades meets the Queen of the Earth.

But before he could summon the messenger who could traverse both Upper and Lower Realms, the invocation of Hermes’ name lodged in his throat. Would Demeter be angry about the pathway he had forged between his realm and her spring-fed pool? If he wrote to her about it, would she destroy it?

Maybe just a peek at the pool to gauge if this was an auspicious moment for trying to reconnect. He could always send a message on another night.

Why are you bothering? She ignored the one you sent forty-three years ago.

And the one you sent a hundred-and-twenty-one years ago.

And the one you sent three-hundred-and-seventy-six years ago.

She also ignored the one you sent three-hundred-and seventy-seven years ago and the one—

I know!

Kore was worth it. She was worth everything, so he waded out into the Akheron and called up the required pain again. It wasn’t hard to do. But 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.

He drew in a sharp breath through his nose and reflexively slipped further into the shadows, going as still as possible. Infernal bowels of the abyss.

Had he really descried the pool in the hopes of seeing Demeter? Of course Kore would be there. Why else would he have been so strongly drawn back to this place after just leaving it?

She was drawn here for the same reason.

With the moon behind her, he couldn’t see the look on her face. The Bringer of Blossomtime was all in silhouette, yet unmistakeable. He would recognize her form in any light, and especially in darkness. She let out a swooning sigh and lay back on the rocks. One of her hands traced absent infinities on the surface of the water. “Oh, my valiant lord…” she murmured.

The breath caught in his throat. Oh, my goddess…

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, he 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.

She said it again.

And once more.

His name

TONIGHT'S LYRICS TRANSLATION:
Coming to ya, ya, I won't give up, up

Say my name a little louder
It makes me wake up from sleep
Say my name louder one more time
When you call my name I head to that far away place, fly high
Don't try to stop me, give it up
My past is burning up now
We don't want no trouble, just movin' forward
Yeah, running again towards the flame in that dark moon

Everyone here to that high place
If we're together, no down, down, down
Put your hands up, scream it louder
For a bursting start

When the moonlight calls on us
Looking like it will cover the world
Take our hands and fly away
Yes sir, responding to that call 

Say my name, say my name, say my name (Call, call)
Say my name, say my name, say my name (Ooh-ooh, ooh)
Call on me, c-c-call on me
Hold onto my hands, look at my eyes

The beginning of the road we made is prosperous
The dream of being on top and the bottom
Can be changed with one difference
Evermore better than better
Put your head up, getter go getter
Also take that gold treasure
Come to me
Call on me, call on me, call me

When my heart beats, when it feels overwhelming
It's probably destiny
Please, don't let me go
It's finally chosen, only my way (Only my way)

Say my name, say my name, say my name
Say my name, say my name, say my name
Call on me, so that we can go together
Hold onto my hands, look at my eyes
My name is, my name is, A to the Z
My name is, my name is, A to the Z
I can give you everything, only to you
Now my mind is born again

Up next: Kore swoons beside the sacred pool, blossoming dreams into being, awash in A SCENT TO ROB REASON.

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