⚡️ That Infernal Silver Tongue
L&W 13: Zeus attempts to decipher exactly what Haides is saying.
Previously on 6 LITTLE SEEDS:
Haides shut his eyes and shook his head. He supposed he could marry Styx, and battle witticisms for eternity. Or perhaps Hekate would say yes if he promised not to pester her for sex. As long as she didn’t pester him about finding it elsewhere, that could work.
Except he knew, deep in his heart, that it never would. There was only one goddess who could ever take the throne at his side. The one whose song interwove with his as neatly as two opposite-hued strands spun into a single, strong thread.
Thankfully, he knew both of Kore’s parents well enough to know how to maneuver them on the game board and get exactly what he wanted out of them.
So he invoked the needful name. “HERMES.”
—From: Love Like 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.” KLYMENOS is one of Haides’ gazillion epitaphs. It means “illustrious” (or depending on who’s grumbling it, “notorious.”)
ZEUS THUNDERER, MASTER OF THE HEAVENS, RULER OF OLYMPOS, LORD OF ORDER, LAW & LIGHTNING, KING OF ALL GODS
🌩⚡️🌩
“Oh, Haides, dear Haides…” His mouth pressed flat behind his curled beard. Balancing the small boulder on the tip of one forefinger, Zeus examined the message that had been gouged into the stone. He sat cross-legged upon a cloud in his Chamber of Contemplation, naked but for the simplest hip-wrap of spun starlight and liquid-diamond. A meandros design of gold thread trimmed the garment. Most of his clothing bore this symbol of infinity and unity on one edge or another.
So without; so within.
At this moment, Zeus’ mastery of infinite harmonious confederacy needed all the help it could get.
Unfortunately, the large curls that hung in uniform symmetry alongside his face had darkened from the white-gold he had worn while holding court. Now his hair, like his beard, had gone storm-gray, hedging toward the black of his birth. His cloud, too, hunkered beneath him, brewing thunderheads that matched his eyes. No longer their customary sky-blue, they had shifted to the threatening green-tinged murk that made everything under his gaze cringe.
The cause of his ire: this infernal rock in his hand.
These days, every message Hermes delivered from the Underworld, every chthonic rumor breezing about, every tidbit tattled from every other messenger, spy, and busybody proved more troublesome than the last.
A flash of lightning ripped through Zeus’ eyes as he set the boulder into slow rotation so he could mull over his brother’s words for the fifth time. They covered every surface with Haides’ impeccable, blunt fire-blasting, flourished here and there with elegant accents for emphasis.
Zeusy Dear—
Damnation, brother. Now there’s something we haven’t seen in a millennium. Females threatening Olympian Gods with the Ouranos Treatment?
Just ignore my last message, all right? I do hereby solemnly and respectfully withdraw my request to wed Kore. Nemesis, what a nightmare!
All this time, you’ve been so right about Demeter. I don’t know why I ever thought I could talk sense into her. If you can’t, nobody else stands a chance. I’m sure she’s still frothing that you’ve stayed with Hera instead of trying to plow a field you’ve already planted in.
I’ll tell you what, she’s definitely still sore about how you and I handled that thorny issue the last time we were all down here together. What is the burr on her hem? That was a thousand years ago! Now my name is her favorite curse. Of course, she forbade me from so much as uttering yours. Said it “polluted” her precious grove.
How do you tolerate her? On and on about that scorpion-tailed bitch who thought she could defy her king and make me kneel. If we thought nasty ole Kampe was stuck in the ages, Demeter has become even more so.
I suppose it should come as no surprise. Nobody can hold an immovable grudge like the Queen of Mud and Lodged Rocks. I had no idea she was harboring such outdated, unrealistic fantasies about “what it’ll be like when the Almighty Twat is on top again.” Is that where Hestia’s gone? To plot tits-and-triumph in the bushes with Demeter in the hopes of grinding us under their heels?
At least Hera knows where to put her faith and worship. Yours is the kind of wife I wish I had.
Well, if Demeter wants to threaten us with our father’s sickle, she can ride it to oblivion. While she’s at it, she can keep her flower-faced daughter pinned under her skirts. Beautiful she may be, but I’m sure Kore is too much of her mother’s creature after all this time. Probably any essence of you has been long weeded out of her. If I was bound to the Bringer of Blossomtime, I’d owe allegiance to her dictatorial, fork-tongued shrew of a mother, and you know how adamant I am about the vows I’ve sworn.
Fuck that. Have a better suggestion?
I’ve actually been thinking about elevating Hekate to Queen. She sees and knows all, and she’s completely devoted to me. Now there’s a power-match with a goddess who already helps me command my multitudes as smoothly as the River of Hate flows. That would be a purely political match. Unmessy. No feelings to get all sore about. So efficient. I wouldn’t bother her for sex; she wouldn’t bother me about keeping as many river nymphs and fire-daimons in my bed as I want. And if she ever gave up that virginity idiocy…well, there’s three of her, isn’t there? Hah!
Good luck with Demeter’s castration campaign, brother. If her little rumbles today are any indication of what’s coming down the river, you’re in for quite the treat. And if you ever want backup in spanking her, ohhhh, I will relish the chance. Just say the word and invite me up.
Give Hera my best, will you? Tell her I miss her nectar. It’s never the same when I have to infuse it with my own ichor.
Your Eternally Infernal,
HAIDES
Zeus scrutinized those final phrases one more time, searching for any hints of the fiend’s moods that might be betrayed by a waver in the engraving or any extra emphasis. There were none, except those which had been intentionally carved.
The entire message needled and goaded, all crafted in Haides’ unforgettable voice. So understated and full of cushion-lounging salutations. So quippy and precise. Surgical. Like the way he wielded his fire-whip. The prick’s blood-nectar smile practically oozed out of the rock. His was the smooth, sharp face of obsidian concealing a caustic magma chamber beneath.
Thunderbolts, I hate that fucker.
So many veiled threats and promises. So many dangled lures with hooks to ensnare and choke the unsuspecting gobbler. Zeus’ hair darkened to downright pitch as he spun the message around and around, trying to decipher truth from lie, omission from misdirection.
Any time they’d needed distraction tactics in the Titanomachy, they had always sent Haides. Same with negotiations that were meant to incite an explosive reaction, not produce a result that would cease hostilities. That was Zeus’ job.
So much of this message’s true meaning lay as hidden as the Unseen One in his Helmet of Invisibility. Without having the villain up here where his expressions, postures, and gestures could be scrutinized and measured, where the nuances of his voice could be deciphered, it was impossible to know Haides’ exact intentions.
Not that seeing him would make much difference. The Notorious One could lie with his eyes and that infuriating smile, even to the King of All Gods.
With an outraged roar, Zeus hurled the boulder across his chamber. In the millisecond before it annihilated the wall and alerted anyone in his nosy court to his upset, he halted the thing in midair. With a stifled grunt, he huffed-growled-snarled, wishing to all that was unholy that he could let it fly, let it crash and crumble.
Instead, he let it thunk on the floor.
He knew from the word on the wind that Demeter and Haides had quarreled today. Centuries ago, the Thunderer had put each of them on his Constant Observation List, so he also knew what the fight was about. He knew that Earth Mother had denied the Tormentor’s proposal of marriage for Kore, and that both of them had come away from that meeting unhinged with rage.
Zeus was also fully aware that this latest message was the epitome of Haides at his most dangerous. The Lord of the Underworld had just armed a catapult and was adjusting its aim.
The pivotal question: at whom?
One of the over-abundant unknowns in this situation.
How much of a nuisance was Demeter planning to make of herself? Was she actually plotting with other goddesses? Were any gods involved? It wouldn’t be the first time his siblings had schemed to overthrow their King On High, and it wouldn’t be the first time females had attempted to regain the power they had lost when Kronos had forbidden them to rule and make war.
Haides had never been one to disparage goddesses on the whole. So was he exaggerating and stirring up trouble for his own ends? Or was he maneuvering a legitimate threat to Olympos for his own purposes?
One of the most alarming topics of all: how serious was he about elevating Hekate to Queen of the Underworld? That was a union that could not come to pass. The Divine Sorceress had always been Zeus’ ally. The last thing he needed was a spy who could cross the Impassable Threshold at will, especially one who possessed the power to transport souls across that boundary.
Any souls.
Hekate could technically transport Haides himself, if she dared break the laws that governed the boundary between Above and Below. She had never been one to completely play by the rules as it was. Up until now, that had worked in Zeus’ favor.
Were she someone else’s creature…
The King On High shut his eyes and forced himself to exhale through his nose, slowly, purposely, until his hair and the cloud upon which he sat had lightened to a soft gray. Silver would be better but that was impossible at this moment.
Perhaps he had miscalculated when he’d so swiftly dismissed the notion of matching Kore with Klymenos. In truth, Zeus had laughed himself delirious at such a ridiculous request, for what could be gained by bartering away Olympos' most eligible bloom to someone who had been outmaneuvered and all but eliminated a millennium ago? Haides had nothing with which to bargain.
Gold? Jewels? River slime and methane?
Once recovered from the hilarity, Zeus had ordered that gigantic bribe-of-a-diamond to be buffed free of Haides’ engraved marriage proposal. Now it made a lovely decoration.
This latest boulder, on the other hand, was perhaps the very missile Haides had loaded into his catapult. How gratifying to boot it straight into the prick's smirking teeth, particularly after that most flagrant insult.
Give Hera my best, will you?
To respond to such a low blow was beneath the Thunderer Supreme. Klymenos was not worth the spark it would take to express indignation.
And yet…
Tell her I miss her nectar…
Eyes still closed, Zeus drew in another longer, slower breath, then took his time allowing it to exit his nostrils. He repeated this until his heartbeat calmed and his guts ceased pumping out bile.
Hera and Haides could swear upon the Styx that nothing had happened that night. They’d been tasked with a sneak-and-destroy mission to undermine the walls of Kronos’ fortress, when they found themselves pinned down. The Titans had come out to engage each other in a midnight wrestling match, trapping wild, glittering Hera and the Unseen Fiend in a shadow-caressed ditch.
Together.
Alone.
Until dawn.
Those two were cut from the same cloth. Volatile but sneaky. Underhanded with silver tongues and hot tempers that exploded just as powerfully in passion as they did in battle. Obviously they hadn’t mated—none of the goddesses had been willing to do that in the middle of the war. But that didn’t mean that the Olympians never engaged in their own…wrestling matches. Hera had been the most ferocious and slippery, the strongest of the girls. The most enjoyable to tangle with.
The memory incited an immediate, vexatious salute in her honor.
With a violent snarl, Zeus leaped down and bashed the cloud-cushion to nothingness, along with his arousal, for all he could picture was his wife’s succulent lips wrapped around Haides’ seething, enraged rod, lapping up his glowing seed as it erupted from—
STOP.
He needed to cease this eternal torment over something that may or may not have happened ages ago, before Hera was ever Zeus’ wife.
Yet the Tormentor’s jibes had worked their dark magic.
At least Hera knows where to put her faith and worship…
Hah. Zeus sniffed down his nose. I bet she does.
Hera was no obedient, devoted wife. Haides knew that. Everybody knew that, for Hera Star-Kissed, Queen of the Heavens and Mistress of Hurled Meteors was rarely subtle when she threatened to band together with the other Olympians to take down her husband. She usually did it in public.
She thought it was safer that way.
After all these centuries, she still hadn’t learned.
Or perhaps she finally had. Was this Kore business simply a distraction tactic? A grandiose ruse? Was the Fiend of the Pits actually in league with Hera and Demeter? Were they—
“Evening, Grandpapa. Whatcha doin’?”
Zeus’ eyes flew open, then slammed shut. He silenced his growl to a steady exhalation, for he knew who floated behind him without looking. Only a few beings in the Cosmos possessed such deft flight as to be capable of sneaking up on the Sky King via this highest window of the tallest tower on the peak of Mount Olympos.
None but Eros, the insufferable Cherub of Love, would have dared.
UP NEXT: Ares tries to send Kore home. Until she sings it. A LONG, SLIM KNIFE BETWEEN THE RIBS
Hey, y’all! Thank you so much for your patience in waiting for these last few installments! I’ve been in the hospital, at long last getting my brains their much-needed intensive scan. Only took 23 years. 🤪 But this ordeal took months of bull-dookie just to make the arrangements, much less undergoing the procedure itself.
I’m finally beginning to resurface into the land of the living, so I look forward to sharing all our godly shenanigans with you on a more consistent basis again. Woot!
If you’re curious about where I’ve been, you can find way too many intimate details about my dance with Dain Bramage on my Bella & the Beast publication, as well as my adventures becoming an all-dancing, all-prancing, fanged martial artist. Be warned, there be Beasties over yonder. But seriously? If you’re coming from this NSFW publication, I’m not terribly worried. Hahahah!
Thanks for sticking with me! MUAH!
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