"Number Nine, The Potteresque," Pt. 3

Raven had Loki escort Persephone and Theodora upstairs.  Loki stopped outside a bright red swinging door.  “What’s in there?” Persephone asked.

“The locker room,” he said.  “You can lock up your valuables, shower, and change into a costume, if your fantasy involves a costume.  Which one did you pick again?”

“Number Seven.”

“Seven . . . that’s Raven’s favorite.  The ancient Greek pirate ship.  You can wear a pirate costume, if you like.  The seat of the wooden bench lifts up and the costumes are inside.  But for that one, I think you look fine the way you are.”

“Thank you,” Persephone giggled.  “Where do I go when I’m done freshening up?”

“At the end of the showers there’s another door.  It will take you to a hallway, and you look for your fantasy number on the door.  Knock on the door with the seven on it.  Your guy will be expecting you.”

“Thanks again.”  She handed Loki another tip and disappeared behind the red door.  Persephone noticed a long mirror.  She checked her makeup, but didn’t feel like she needed a shower until afterwards. "Theo?" she said.

"Yeah, Seph?"

"How do you think Jack will feel when I tell him I've been with another man?  Jack isn’t human, but he still has feelings.  He'll be jealous."

"Why should he be? Right now, he's probably got his fangs in some highly suggestable virgin's neck.  If she's really impressed with the way he sucks, he'll have his cock in her pussy before the sun rises."

"He does get horny when he feeds," Persephone admitted.

"So get yours, girl!  Jack will understand.  Either that, or you won't tell him."

"Thanks, Theo."  Persephone put on a fresh coat of lipstick and went off down the hallway until she found the number seven.

Theodora took off her clothes and showered.  She put on the costume Loki picked out for her.  It was a cute little thing, a blue schoolgirl’s uniform, complete with Mary Jane shoes.  She looked at herself in the mirror and laughed.  She could pass as a French schoolgirl, she was sure she could.  She tried out the prop that came with the costume, too, swishing and flicking her wand and watching the effect in the mirror.  Then Theodora went through the far door, into the hallway, and looked for the number nine.

She found herself within the stone walls of a castle.  There was a great fire roaring in the fireplace, and around it, four stout armchairs.  Outside the window, the sky was cloudless and lit by a shimmering silver moon.  She stepped inside and was suddenly aware of a young man sitting in one of the armchairs, watching the fire. In one hand he held what appeared to be a cherry lollipop.

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“Fleur Delacour,” the young man said with a heavy Bulgarian accent.

“Bon soir, Viktor,” she answered in her best French accent.  “Is this something you do often, sitting alone staring into the fireplace?”

To her surprise, the sulky Bulgarian smiled at her.  “No, not often.  Only when I have much to think about.”  She came and sat on the arm of his chair.  Their eyes locked.  The boy had beautiful brown eyes, and the little bit of brown stubble on his chin was incredibly sexy.

“Are you worried about the tournament, Viktor?’

He shrugged.  “I’d be foolish if I weren’t a little worried.  But that’s not what I’m thinking about.”

“Let me guess,” said Theodora.  “You’re thinking about little miss perfect.”  She leaned in closer, so close that their noses were almost touching.  “Well, let me tell you something about her you might not realize.  She may be smart, and she may be pretty, but she’s in the same year as the little boy Harry Potter.  She’s a baby, Viktor.”  She closed her eyes and waited.  The wait seemed eternal.  She had almost given up and opened her eyes when she felt his lips against hers.  The kiss was brief.

 Afterward, she licked her lips and finished her thought.  “I am a woman.”

“Yes you are,” he said, leaning in to kiss her some more.  Only then did she notice the unusual flavor on his lips.  She sniffed at the lollipop.  Rather than cherry or strawberry, it smelled like human blood.

"A Honeyduke's specialty," he said. "Blood-flavored lollipops for vampires."

"You're a vampire?"

He nodded.  "Did you not suspect?  I am a student of the dark arts." He smiled widely, and she saw how long and sharp his canines were.  They were no prosthetics, either: the young dead man playing Viktor Krum in this fantasy scenario was really a vampire. He tossed his lollipop into the fire and said, "I lose my taste for candy so near the throbbing veins of a young Frenchwoman."

Carefully she maneuvered herself into his lap.  Viktor looked around to make sure they were alone, and then unbuttoned Theodora’s blue jacket.  Soon her uniform was lying on the floor in front of the fire.

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Viktor stood as Theodora settled into the chair.  His fur-lined cape was resting on the back of the chair.  He wore black pants and a black sweater, but shed them as Theodora watched.  She felt guilty then, because underneath his clothes, the boy playing Viktor in her fantasy looked so young.  She wondered if he was any older than twenty.  But then again, this was the Underworld, and he was a vampire.  He might have died hundreds, even thousands, of years ago.

Either way, he looked strong in the firelight, especially as took off his black sweater and exposed the hard angles of slick, gleaming muscles. His skin was pale bathed in the orange glow, making Theodora want to see more.  She reached up to help him with his zipper and quickly learned he wore nothing underneath his black pants.  His face exhibited pure gratitude as her hand caressed his cock.

 He smelled incredibly good; she wanted to take him into her mouth, but remembered what Seph had said about vampires.  Never breaking the connection between her hand and his dick, he helped her out of the chair, and the two of them tumbled onto the Persian rug.   They wrestled for position for a moment.  She let Viktor win, eventually, though Theodora was far stronger than she let on while she was play-acting.  She ran the palms of her hands over his rock-like muscle.  As he ascended to the top, Viktor took "Fleur's" face in both hands and kissed her passionately.  Like a teenager, his kiss was a bit rough; like a vampire, he nipped her with wickedly sharp fangs.  Her lip bled, and Viktor licked the blood away.

When Theo showed no signs of objecting to the bite, Viktor moved from her lips to her neck.  She inhaled his scent, sweet and exotic, like tropical fruit.  It was strange to feel his lips and tongue on her neck without feeling the warmth of his breath; he didn't breathe.  If his body was cold, she couldn't tell so near the hearth.

Viktor's knee gently pushed Theo's legs apart, and she complied with this bodily request, spreading her legs further.  As his cock entered her wet, waiting pussy, his fangs entered an artery in her neck.  Pain and pleasure swirled in a dizzying sensation in her brain.  She wasn't aware of how much blood he was taking, but his persistent sucking seemed to go on forever. So, too, did Viktor's hard, supernaturally quick, persistent fucking.  He seemed able to go forever.  Theo lost count of how many times she came, with no indication that Viktor was near his own crescendo. He had either a teenager's stamina, or centuries of practice, she was sure.

After his fangs retracted from her artery, though, Viktor's release came.  Theo enjoyed the feel of his cock pumping into her, his body shuddering on top of hers...and tried not to think about his bloody ejaculation.

They separated.  Theodora kissed his forehead tenderly as she picked her clothes off the floor.  She was covered in sweat, but she didn’t care.

When Theodora reached the locker room, she changed back into the clothes she came in with.  She didn’t bother to shower.  She liked the sweaty smell of boy clinging to her.  When Loki returned Theodora to the bar, she found Persephone waiting for her, sipping on a cosmo that might have contained cranberry juice or blood.  She smiled broadly.

“How was yours?”

“It was wonderful,” Persephone said.  “I mean, I really love Jack.  I can’t wait to return to the world of the living to be with him again.  But today was—well, what I think about sometimes when I’m with Jack.  How was yours?”

“Just like being in the book, except dirty.  I loved it.”

“Was he that good?”

“Totally.”  The women laughed.  Raven appeared and took Theodora’s drink order.

“And could we see a food menu now, please?” Persephone asked.  Raven nodded and produced one from under the bar.  “I’m starving.  Are you hungry, Theo?”

“Like the wolf,” Theodora said, giggling.

The End

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"Number Nine, The Potteresque," Pt. 2

After Jack’s death and rebirth, Persephone needed a little cheering up.  Theodora said she’d heard of a little place, and persuaded Persephone to put on one of her good dresses, brush on a little makeup, and go out for a couple of margaritas.

Public domain

They got in Persephone’s car and drove past the fields of colorless flowers, past the place where the nameless dead made their homes.  Few were the dead who remembered their own names and who they were in life.  Among those who did were Raven Rachel Templin and the many beautiful young men who resided in her inn.  One of these men, dressed in a fine old tuxedo, answered the heavy wooden door when Persephone knocked on it.  When he saw the goddess, he bowed low.

“Good evening, Your Majesty,” the well-dressed boy said.   “My name is Loki; please allow me to be your host tonight.  What may I do for you?”

“Loki, rise.  I want you to treat me as you would any other guest tonight.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“My friend and I would like to sit at the bar.”

Loki looked around, but he saw no one accompanying Persephone, other than a large silver-gray wolf.  “You and your wolf would like to sit at the bar, ma’am?”

Persephone nodded, as Theodora stood on her hind legs and regained her human form.  They each slipped a bright jewel into Loki’s pocket as a tip as he showed them to the bar.

Behind the bar tonight was none other than the proprietor herself.  Raven was a an olive-skinned woman whose long, curly black hair was tied back in a scarf and covered with a wide-brimmed straw hat, as if she still needed protection from the sun glinting off the Caribbean sea.  She wore string after string of pearls, in all colors from palest pink to shimmering black.

“You’d been Persephone, Queen of the Underworld,” Raven said.  Then, turning to Theodora, “I am not sure of your name, mademoiselle, but welcome.  I trust Loki saw you in with the utmost respect.”

“He did,” Persephone agreed.  “But Theodora and I want to be treated like regular guests.  Can you make us a couple of margaritas?”

“Frozen or on the rocks?”

“Rocks,” said Theodora.  In a moment, Raven set two glasses down, with lime slices and the salt shaker.  The women drank in silence until Raven wandered off.

“Can I tell you a secret about Jack?” Persephone said quietly.

“Of course, girl,” Theodora answered.  “You and I are like sisters.  You can tell me anything.”

Persephone giggled and confessed.  “Jack’s a vampire, right?  So he’s all about the oral thing.  Even though his teeth are kinda sharp, he’s really good at going down on me.  But when I go down on him . . .”

“What?” Theodora prompted, leaning in closer.  “You can tell me.”

“He’s not like the human guys that I went out with in high school.  When he comes, I mean.  Jack doesn’t have--well, he doesn’t have cum like human guys do.”

“So—what happens?  You’re blowing him, and he comes, and then nothing?”

“I wish,” said Persephone, still giggling, her cheeks glowing red.  “Nothing would be a nice change.  No, when I suck him off, I get a mouthful of...blood.”

Theodora almost choked on her margarita.  “Seph, that's disgusting.”

“I know,” Persephone said.  “If it was any other guy, I wouldn’t put up with it.  But Jack is so sweet, and since I’m doomed to live half my life in the Underworld anyway, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather spend my time with.  I can’t wait to see him again on the first day of spring.  But lately I’ve been thinking about, just once, being with a guy who’s human.”

Raven reappeared, holding a bright pink menu.  “Would you ladies like see my special menu?” she asked, setting it down in front of Theodora.

“I’m not hungry,” Persephone said.

“It’s not food,” Theodora said.  “Look, Seph.  These are all kinds of different fantasies you can get a guy to do with you.”

“A guy or two,” Raven corrected.  “Or more.  Not my thing, really, but girls these days like all kinds of things.  If you’re not interested in the fantasies, though, the back page shows you the basics.”  She flipped over the menu.

Theodora traced her finger along a line on the back page.  “There you go, Persephone.  A straight blow job is the cheapest thing on the menu.  Your fantasy, and a bargain to boot.”

“None of your guys are vampires, are they?” Persephone asked Raven.

“I have several vampires, naturally.”

Persephone stared at the menu for a moment longer, and then said, “I’ll have the Number Seven...but I want a human guy.  No vampires.”

“Dionysus and the pirates...very edgy,” Raven said.  And for you?”

“Hmmm,” said Theodora, surveying the menu again.  “I’ll go with Number Nine.”

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"Number Nine, The Potteresque," Pt. 1

Peter Thackeray LeBon had been dead since 1830.  The monotony of his eternal punishment was starting to get to him.  He stood before the bathroom mirror, looking into his hollow blue eyes, asking himself for the millionth time how he could have ended up here, slave to that woman--if she was a woman.

“LeBon,” Maman Brigitte called from the bedroom.  “What is taking so long?  Get out here!”
Her voice, deep and booming with its Caribbean accent, sent chills through his body.  He feared her.  And there was no way to escape.

He opened the bathroom door and emerged, wearing nothing but a towel.  Maman Brigitte lay across her enormous feather bed, her gown of black velvet, lace and human bone pulled up and bunched up around her belly, revealing her long, chocolate-brown legs and black panties.

Brigitte sat up and brushed the bleached-blonde locks from her eyes.  She pointed to a pair of black leather pants at the foot of the bed.  “Drop the towel,”she commanded.  “Put those on.”  He obeyed, painfully aware the death-goddess was studying his every move.

“What’s the matter, LeBon?” she asked as he crouched down to kiss the top of her foot.  “Do you not enjoy being my slave?  Raven thought you would really enjoy this, since you loved the slave trade so much in life.”

“That was so long ago,” he said.  Every morning when he awoke, he cursed Raven Templin and wished he had never laid a hand on Raven’s friend Badu.  Badu, it turned out, was a priestess of the goddess Yemaya.  Yemaya, in another form, was none other than Maman Brigitte herself.  He would spend eternity doing whatever Brigitte/Yemaya wished.

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Right now, she wanted him to eat her pussy.  Brigitte stared up at the Baroque golden cherubim decorating the ceiling as LeBon worked his way up her calf, up her thigh, and into her panties, the way she'd trained him.  Suddenly, Brigitte was distracted by a scratching noise at the door.

“LeBon, be a dear and see who’s at the door,” Brigitte moaned.

Relieved, he opened the door.  He looked down and saw the raised paw of a large, silver-gray wolf with a white belly. The creature looked at him with curious yellow-green eyes.

“It’s a wolf,” LeBon said.

Maman Brigitte came nearer.  “Theodora!  Well, this is a surprise.  Don’t be a stranger, dear.  Come in.”

The wolf took a few steps back and turned its furry head.   A moment later it turned back to the doorway with a basket between its jaws.  Maman Brigitte took the offering, peering inside to find a green glass bottle stuffed with habanero peppers floating in dark rum.

“Theodora, you didn’t have to.  But I’m glad you did.”  Brigitte offered the bottle to LeBon, who gratefully took a long drink.  The potent mixture of hot peppers and rum burned his throat, but momentarily took him away from his surroundings.  What was left in the bottle he returned to Brigitte, who finished it.  She belched as the wolf stood on its hind legs and transformed into a woman.

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“Well, bitch,” Brigitte said, “what brings you to my humble abode today?”

“Humble?” Theodora said as she looked around the room.  “Your house is covered in gold.”  Like Brigitte, she had a Caribbean accent.

“I was being polite,” Brigitte said.  She gave LeBon a hard slap to the back of the head.  “What brings you here today, my friend?”

“The Underworld brings me here today, in fact,” Theodora said.  “I’ve heard rumblings, strange mutterings having to do with the Queen.”

Brigitte shook her head.  “I don’t know what kind of crowd you’ve been hanging out with, to have heard something like that.  But you’ve hit upon a truth.  Persephone hasn’t been at all happy lately.  But you know the rules.  As gatekeeper of the Underworld, I’m not supposed to let any mortals down there.  ”

Theodora frowned.  “But Persephone and I have been friends since high school.  I know a good way to cheer her up, if you’ll let me.  Come on now, Maman Brigitte.  There are always exceptions to the rule, aren’t there?”

“I can think of one or two,” Brigitte said.  “I suppose I can allow it.  But only this once, and only if you make a promise to me.  Give me your hand.”

Brigitte reached for Theodora’s hand, cupping her visitor’s honey-brown hand inside her own.  She drew a dagger from her boot and cut a deep line into Theodora’s palm, which began to bleed and dribble down her wrist into the marble floor.  She made a similar slit in her own hand.  The women pressed their palms together in a blood oath.

“What have I sworn to, my goddess?” Theodora asked.

“After you’ve passed back to the world of the living, you will be given one day to return to my dwelling with a larger offering.  No mere bottle of rum and peppers this time.  I want a feast, like the ones my followers used to leave in the graveyards for me in the olden days.”  She pressed a black handkerchief into Theodora’s hand to stop the bleeding.  “I want you to bring your drum.  Play for me, and sing me some of my old-time praises.”

“You’ll have your feast, goddess, I assure you.”

“Good,” Brigitte said.  "Now let’s get you through that gate.”

The women went through Brigitte’s mansion and out the French doors into the garden.  Among the birds of paradise and palm trees stood the stone gate that marked the entrance into the Underworld.
 Brigitte uttered the words only she knew, and the gate swung open.  A cold breeze blew in from the other side.

Theodora got down on her hands and knees to resume her wolf form.  She walked on four legs into the eerie world of the dead, her front paw stinging from the cut.  She reached the river of blood first.
 Had she been human, the ferryman would have asked her for fare to cross.  Since she appeared as an animal, however, the ferryman took no notice of her.  She jumped with a great splash into the red river, inhaling its musky, meaty perfume.  When she reached the far shore, she shook herself, then sat for a moment to lick the blood from her silvery coat.  She walked on, past the fields of unearthly colorless flowers, until she came to the palace of Hecate, Goddess of Death, where Persephone dwelled as Queen of the Dead for six months of every year.  She jumped right into the palace through an open window and headed for the tower where Persephone stayed with her lover, the vampire Jack Damuzi.

Theodora climbed the winding stone stairs to the tower, resuming her human shape as she climbed.  She lifted the brass knocker and knocked on the heavy wooden door.  Two minutes later, the door swung open.  Jack stood there, looking unusually pale even for a vampire, his red-brown eyes streaked with bloody tears.

“I heard the terrible news,” Theodora said sympathetically.  “May I see Seph?”

“Persephone,” Jack called softly into his quarters.  “You have a visitor.”

Jack opened the door wide, and Theodora could see Persephone lying face-down with her head on her pillow, sobbing.  She looked up to see Theodora, but did not stop crying.  Theodora sat beside her and stroked Persephone’s hair to comfort her.  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

Jack sniffed the air.  “You’ve been in the river of blood, haven’t you?”  He moved in closer to Theodora, picking up her hand.  “ And you’ve cut yourself, too.  Very recently.  I can smell how the blood is clotting.  It smells old and stale at the surface, but the fresh blood underneath is tempting.
 Just now I sensed that your heart started beating faster.  Am I making you nervous, Theodora?  I’m sorry.  I get overwhelmed when I smell living blood.  Seph, darling, would it bother you terribly if I took one tiny nibble of Theodora’s neck?”

“Yes,” Persephone sobbed.

“This is precisely the problem,” Jack explained sadly.  “First Persephone came down here, and she’s not dead.  Against my better judgement, I fed off of her.  But although there is no blood in the world as delicious as that of a young goddess, Persephone only aroused my appetite for the blood of the living without bedding it back down.  I tried to satiate myself.  I practically sucked Persephone dry, the poor thing.  That was when Hecate made the fateful decision to send me out into the world of the living for three months.”

Theodora nodded.  “I heard through the grapevine you were going to be born.”

“Yes,” Jack said.  “In three days’ time, when the Winter Solstice comes around, a mortal shall give birth to me.  Hecate chose a virgin, appeared to her in a dream and made her pregnant.  Next Hecate will perform an ancient ritual that will kill me here in the Underworld, so that I may be born as that child.”  Here Persephone gave a loud sob.  “In three months’ time I will grow from an infant into the man that you see before you now.  At the Vernal Equinox, Persephone will return to the world of the living, and we shall be reunited.”

“You see, dear?” Theodora said sweetly.  “There’s hope.  You’ll see Jack again.  In three months, you’ll get to be reunited with your true love.  It sounds wonderful.  Can’t you look forward to the reunion?”

Persephone raised her head off the pillow.  “I guess I never thought about it like that,” she said, wiping tears and mascara from her eyes.  She gave Theodora a kiss on the cheek.  “Thank you.  Will you stay with us until . . . after?”

“Of course,” Theodora said.  “That is, if it’s all right with Jack.”

“Fine with me,” shrugged Jack.  “It would be even finer if you let me have just a little bite . . .”

“No,” Theodora and Persephone said in unison.

Hecate with dog. Public domain within the United States

Like A God's Kiss: Erotic Mythological Tales

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#Destiel AU in Which Castiel Is Cupid and Dean is Psyche - Pt. 3 of 3

Part One

Part Two

Cupid meanwhile had gone to his mother's chamber to have his wound cared for, but when Venus heard his story and learned that it was Dean whom he had chosen, she left him angrily alone in his pain, and went forth to find the guy of whom he had made her still more jealous. Venus was determined to show Dean what it meant to draw down the displeasure of a goddess.

http://thatwritererinoriordan.tumblr.com/post/106010308855#notes

Poor Dean in his despairing wanderings was trying to win the gods over to his side. He offered ardent prayers to them perpetually, but not one of them would do anything to make Venus their enemy. At last he perceived that there was no hope for him, either in heaven or on earth, and he took a desperate resolve. He would go straight to Venus; he would offer himself humbly to him as her servant, and try to soften her anger. "And who knows," Dean thought, "if he himself is not there in his mother's house." So he set forth to find the goddess who was looking everywhere for him.

When he came into Venus' presence the goddess laughed aloud and asked him scornfully if he was seeking a husband since the one he had had would have nothing to do with him because he had almost died of the burning wound Dean had given him. "But really," she said, "you are so plain and ill-favored a boy that you will never be able to get you a lover except by the most diligent and painful service. I will therefore show my good will to you by training you in such ways." With that she took a great quantity of the smallest of the seeds, wheat and poppy and millet and so on, and mixed them all together in a heap. "By nightfall these must all be sorted," she said. "See to it for your own sake." And with that she departed.

Dean, left alone, sat still and stared at the heap. His mind was all in a maze because of the cruelty of the command; and, indeed, it was of no use to start a task so manifestly impossible. But at this direful moment he who had awakened no compassion in mortals or immortals was pitied by the tiniest creatures of the field, the little bees, the swift-fliers. They cried to each other, "Come, have mercy on this poor guy and help him diligently." At once they came, waves of them, one after another, and they labored separating and dividing, until what had been a confused mass lay all ordered, every seed with its kind.

This was what Venus found when she came back, and very angry she was to see it. "Your work is by no means over," she said. Then she gave Dean a crust of bread and bade him sleep on the ground while she herself went off to her soft, fragrant couch. Surely if she could keep the boy at hard labor and half starve him, too, that hateful beauty of his would soon be lost. Until then she must see that her son was securely guarded in his chamber where he was still suffering from his wound. Venus was pleased at the way matters were shaping.

The next morning she devised another task for Dean, this time a dangerous one. "Down there near the riverbank," she said, "where the bushes grow thick, are sheep with fleeces of gold. Go fetch me some of their shining wool." When the worn boy reached the gently flowing stream, a great longing seized him to throw himself into it and end all his pain and despair. But as he was bending over the water he heard a little voice from near his feet, and looking down saw that it came from a green reed. He must not drown himself, it said. Things were not as bad as that. The sheep were indeed very fierce, but if Dean would wait until they came out of the bushes toward evening to rest beside the river, he could go into the thicket and find plenty of the golden wool hanging on the sharp briars.

So spoke the kind and gentle reed, and Dean, following the directions, was able to carry back to his cruel mistress a quantity of the shining fleece. Venus received it with an evil smile. "Someone helped you," she said sharply. "Never did you do this by yourself. However, I will give you an opportunity to prove that you really have the stout heart and the singular prudence you make such a show of. Do you see that black water which falls from the hill yonder? It is the source of the terrible river which is called hateful, the river Styx. You are to fill this flask from it."

That was the worst task yet, as Dean saw when he approached the waterfall. Only a winged creature could reach it, so steep and slimy were the rocks on all sides, and so fearful the onrush of the descending waters. But by this time it must be evident to all the readers of this story (as, perhaps, deep in his heart it had become evident to Dean himself) that although each of his trials seemed impossibly hard, an excellent way out would always be provided for him. This time his savior was an eagle, who poised on his great wings beside him, seized the flask from him with his beak and brought it back to him full of the black water.

But Venus kept on. One cannot but accuse her of some stupidity. The only effect of all that had happened was to make her try again. She gave Dean a box which he was to carry to the underworld and ask Proserpine to fill with some of her beauty. He was to tell her that Venus really needed it, she was so worn-out from nursing her sick son.

Obediently as always Dean went forth to look for the road to Hades. He found his guide in a tower he passed. It gave him careful directions how to get to Proserpine's palace, first through a great hole in the earth, then down to the river of death, where he must give the ferryman, Charon, a penny to take him across. From there the road led straight to the palace. Cerberus, the three-headed dog, guarded the doors, but if Dean gave him some pie he would be friendly and let him pass.

All happened, of course, as the tower had foretold. Proserpine was willing to do Venus a service, and Dean, greatly encouraged, bore back the box, returning far more quickly than he had gone down.

His next trial he brought upon himself through his curiosity and, still more, his vanity. He felt that he must see what that beauty-charm in the box was; and, perhaps, use a little of it himself. He knew quite as well as Venus did that his looks were not improved by what he had gone through, and always in his mind was the thought that he might suddenly meet Cupid. If only he could make himself more lovely for him!

http://thatwritererinoriordan.tumblr.com/post/104232234081/ugh-would-you-two-dumb-nerds-just-go-have-the-sex

He was unable to resist the temptation; he opened the box. To his sharp disappointment he saw nothing there; it seemed empty. Immediately, however, a deadly languor took possession of him and he fell into a heavy sleep.

At this juncture the God of Love himself stepped forward. Cupid was healed of his wound by now and longing for Dean. It is a difficult matter to keep Love imprisoned. Venus had locked the door, but there were the windows. All Cupid had to do was to fly out and start looking for his husband. He was lying almost beside the palace, and he found him at once. In a moment he had wiped the sleep from his eyes and put it back into the box. Then waking him with just a prick from one of his arrows, and scolding him a little for his curiosity, he bade Dean take Proserpine's box to his mother and assured him that all thereafter would be well.

While the joyful Dean hastened on his errand, the god flew up to Olympus. He wanted to make certain that Venus would give them no more trouble, so he went straight to his grandfather, Jupiter himself. The Father of Gods and Men consented at once to all that Cupid asked—"Even though," he said, "you have done me great harm in the past—seriously injured my good name and my dignity by making me change myself into a bull and a swan and so on. . . However, I cannot refuse you." Then he called a full assembly of the gods, and announced to all, including Venus, that Cupid and Dean were formally married, and that he proposed to bestow immortality upon the mortal man. Mercury brought Dean into the palace of the gods, and Jupiter himself gave him the ambrosia to taste which made him immortal.

This, of course, completely changed the situation. Venus could not object to a god for her son-in-law; the alliance had become eminently suitable. No doubt she reflected also that Dean, living up in heaven with a husband to care for, could not be much on the earth to turn people's heads and interfere with her own worship.

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/46936021092877065/

So all came to a most happy end. Cupid and Dean had sought and, after sore trials, found each other; and that union could never be broken.

About the Authors

Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis (circa 125-180 CE), commonly known as Apuleius, was a citizen of the Roman Empire who lived in North Africa (present-day Algeria). He's best known for his ribald prose work Metamorphoses, or The Golden Ass. The myth of Cupid and Psyche is the best-known part of this work, remarkable for being the only Latin-language work to have survived complete from antiquity.

Erin O'Riordan (b. 1977) is still alive. She gets distracted by writing fan fiction mash-ups when she should be editing her novel. She's obsessed with Castiel (an angel of the Lord) and Dean Winchester because of Tumblr. She still hasn't seen a single episode of Supernatural, and she likes it that way. She might be persuaded to catch up if Destiel should ever become canon, because she laments the sore lack of bisexual/pansexual representation on television.

http://thatwritererinoriordan.tumblr.com/post/102087986330#notes

#YA #BookReview The Lost Sun by Tessa Gratton #NorseMyth

The ending is sad (but since this is only the first book in the series, I'm not TOO worried about that), but otherwise, this book is kind of perfect. By that I mean Tessa Gratton - a scholar of Old English who previously translated 'Beowulf' - does a really wonderful job of weaving Norse mythology and Anglo-Saxon saga tradition into a young adult novel set in the contemporary world, tweaked with Germanic folkways. And - oh, yeah - the Norse gods are real.

The plot draws heavily on the Norse myth of the death of Baldur, traditionally the most beloved son of Odin. Yet Baldur is a secondary character to Soren Bearskin (that's Bears' Kin rather than Bear Skin), the mortal son of Berserker who went TOO berserk, filled with his own dawning battle-rage and destined to be like his father, yet not like him.

Soren is just beginning to realize how deeply he loves his friend Astrid, the daughter of a famous fortune-teller and a fortune-teller herself, when Baldur fails to make his annual return from the land of death. Baldur, who represents the sun, is sort of like a phoenix, who dies and then rises from his own ashes - at least, he has until now. Soren and Astrid set off on an adventure, guided by fate and joined by a new friend, the strange Loki's Kin girl named Vider. There are trolls, but just little ones. Their goal is to find the apple orchard of Idun, the keeper of youth and immortality, and when they get there, nothing is as it seems.



One of the really brilliant things about this book is the nature of reality in it: the gods are real and interact with mortals (Vider, it turns out, knows Loki personally, and Soren meets Loki's daughter Fenris Wolf), but are also spoken of in myths, and there are different versions. The gods could tell mortals their own true histories, but they choose to let the mortals create their own versions, because even the gods have agendas, and it wouldn't suit their ends to have their full stories known. The gods are mysterious, and even Astrid's foresight can't reveal everything about the journey she and Soren will make...

Resulting in a sad ending. I hope the next book in the series makes right what was "wrong" with the ending. I also hope Loki gets to play a bigger role in the next book. When he appears, it's as a sullen teenage boy. The myths about him make him the mother of Fenris (he became a female wolf and lived among a pack of wild wolves; all were slaughtered except Loki, and he then discovered his belly swollen with Fenris), but she calls him "Father." I would like Tessa Gratton to tell me more about Loki.

Gratton's conception of Freya is very interesting as well. Most of what I've read associated the queen of the Valkyries with the All-Mother Frigg. I've never read anything else that associated Freya with Hel, the queen of the world of the dead. Hel is usually called Loki's daughter, along with Fenris and the Midgard Serpent (Loki's three children with his frost giant mistress). I like this twist, making the goddess of love and war Freya one with the death-goddess.



The Goddess who embraces the souls of warriors at death should be the one who watches over their shades - which is part of the traditional mythology, that dead warriors feast with Freya and become her lovers. Hel is usually thought of more of ruling over the souls of dead mortals, I think, but I think this is a really interesting twist. Maybe Freya, Frigg, and Hel are the trinity or triple goddess in Norse mythology, equivalent to Persephone-Demeter-Hecate in Greek mythology and the triple goddess The Morrigan in Irish mythology?

If I lived in this universe, which god would I choose to follow? I'd probably belong to Freya, like Astrid does. Either Freya or Frigg, although the temptation to belong to Loki would be there as well.

It's really different from any other YA novel I've read before. It's fascinating. So other than wanting more, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I look forward to the next one, The Strange Maid. It won't be out until June 10, 2014, but you can preorder it now.

I got this book free in exchange for a review through Amazon Vine. I was not otherwise compensated for this review, which represents my own honest opinion.

                                                 Amazon Music: Six Months of Disney+

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Mabon Greetings, Day 2: Let's Talk About Sif

Yesterday we talked about Mabon; today I'll focus on a Northern European goddess strongly associated with the grain harvest, an ideal archetypal figure for a fall holiday of thanksgiving. We can learn a little about this Norse goddess, often simply referred to as "the wife of Thor" (typical patriarchy! to honor a goddess only as far as her relationship to a male divinity), from a beautiful old book I rescued from a library book sale.

My cover looks different. This image is from Amazon.co.uk, and is by this person*

This book, first published in 1957, is called The Lost Gods of England by Brian Branston (not to be confused with Breaking Bad actor Bryan Cranston!). It's all about the religious-mythological system of the British Isles during the Anglo-Saxon period, which it appears was something of a mash-up between traditional Norse mythology and Celtic mythology. The two cultures had some similarities anyway, because all Indo-European pantheons can be traced back to the very ancient religion of the Indian subcontinent.

I just made a really cool thing sound incredibly boring. Norse myth is cool, really. Otherwise, Marvel wouldn't have co-opted it for comic books, and an increasingly successful movie franchise. More on the comic book Sif later.

Sif's brief article at Encyclopedia Mythica will tell you the story of how Loki sneaked into Sif's bedroom and cut off all her golden hair. The crime was investigated by Veronica Mars - no, I'm just kidding. Thor threatened to pull an Incredible Hulk on Loki unless Loki found a way to replace the hair. The ever-resourceful trickster god went to some dwarves, who spun gold into replacement locks, which Loki then magically attached to Sif.

Lost Gods is slightly more instructive. Slightly. Sif comes up four times. The first time is on page 117 of my edition, which teaches us that the Anglo-Saxon counterpart of Thor, called Thunor, is associated with agriculture, which "make[s] for a fertility element to his cult...He is married to the golden-haired goddess Sif, the northern Ceres, another manifestation of Mother Earth." Ceres, of course, is the Roman equivalent of the Greek grain-goddess Demeter, the mother of Persephone.

She comes up again on page 123, in the myth of how Thor once fought a stone giant named Hrungnir and ended up with a piece of stone embedded in his skull. The original source for this tale is the famous Icelandic poet and politician Snorri Sturluson, who lived in the 12th and 13th centuries. Christianity came to Iceland around the year 1000, and by Snorri's time, the Norse religion was no longer the dominant one. But I digress - this myth says only that Hrungnir threatened to abduct both Sif and Freya.

As seen in this Creative Commons image, another famous Icelandic person is Bjork. 

The third reference, on page 128, is similarly brief; Branston merely asserts that Freya and Sif are the same goddess, and so is Frig.

The final reference, on page 145, takes the tale of how Sif lost her hair as a metaphor - our old favorite, the agricultural metaphor of the Annually Dying and Returning God and his mother/lover who is Mother Earth. The loss of hair is the loss of the lover ("death" of the harvested crops), and its return is the lover's return (springtime growth of new crops from seeds planted in autumn). Branston cites another version of this myth from the Norse canon. In it, Loki steals the Brisingamen (a really fancy piece of jewelry) from Freya.

Heimdall, the guardian of the godly realm of Asgard who controls the rainbow bridge, Bifrost, transforms himself into a seal selkie-style and swims out to the rock on which Loki has stashed it, and after a battle with Loki, retrieves it for the beautiful goddess of sex and death.

If you read Eternally Bad: Goddesses With Attitude by Trina Robbins, as I did many years ago, you'll read a slightly different twist on the story of Freya and the Brisingamen. In it, Freya offers her sexual services to the dwarves, whose craftsmanship produced the shining jewel (a necklace, in Robbins' telling). From this bawdy Norse myth descends the Western European folk tale of Snow White. Oddly enough, by the 20th century this was regarded as such an innocent children's tale, Walt Disney turned it into the first full-length animated Disney movie.

Public domain image, a screen capture from the trailer for the 1937 Disney film, from Wikimedia Commons

Did you wonder why the seven dwarves worked in a diamond mine?

Trina Robbins also wrote The Great Women Superheroes, which my brother bought me one Winter Holidays. It doesn't mention the Marvel Comics version of Sif. (It does, however, mention The Valkyrie, briefly a member of the Marvel "superteam" The Defenders in the 1970s.) But if you saw the 2011 movie Thor, you may remember that Sif was a character - played by a distinctly brunette actress (Jaimie Alexander). If you were a fan of that movie, you've probably already seen this.

Thor: The Dark World is scheduled for a November 2013 release. The Marvel comic book character Sif, according to the Marvel Universe wiki, first appeared in 1964. In this version of the loss of Sif's golden hair, Loki was overeager to get the replacement hair to the goddess, and over time it darkened from shining gold to jet black. The first Thor film ends with the god's mortal beloved, scientist Jane Foster (played by Natalie Portman), waiting on earth for Thor while he remained in Asgard. In the comics, Thor and Jane have a fairly brief relationship, Odin has long approved of Sif as a mate for Thor, and Thor and Sif get engaged (although they've never been married in the Marvel Universe}. Jane and Sif never come up in the next Marvel film to feature Thor and Loki, The Avengers (2012), but it's possible there may be a bit of a love triangle in The Dark World. Loki has a wife, Sigyn, both in Norse mythology and in Marvel Comics, but she isn't in the film franchise. That's because the filmmakers want Loki to be a single guy, because they know he is attractive to women. Like me. I love Tom Hiddleston as Loki, and I think Idris Elba is absolutely gorgeous with the golden eyes he has when playing Heimdall. Of course, Idris Elba is absolutely gorgeous reading the phone book, or sitting in traffic, or naked on the roof of the Empire State Building eating an Eskimo Pie. (Yeah, I reached way back into the '90s for that reference.) Did I have a point here? Ah, yes - Mabon. The mythological Sif is a great goddess to celebrate at the harvest time because she's a fertility goddess whose golden hair represents the golden sheaves of wheat, or corn, or whatever grain you have that's ripened to a golden brown in the autumn. The sexual pairing of Sif and Thor assures the fertility of the crops. We can also think of Thor and Loki - the fair-haired brother and the dark-haired brother - as archetypes of the Oak King (Thor) and the Holly King (Loki). At Mabon, Loki's powers are starting to decline. At the Winter Solstice - Yule - Loki has his final fling as Lord of Misrule and then becomes the yearly sacrifice of a warrior that Hel (underworld goddess - Loki's daughter, incidentally) demands. Thor will rule until the Summer Solstice, when they'll once again switch places. Eternally. Or at least until Ragnarok, when Loki's monstrous child the Midgard Serpent and Thor kill one another.

I made this myself at QuickMeme.

*This person is Mr. Ian Johnston of Bon Bon Books, Cottenham, Cambridgeshire, U.K. Bon Bon is one of the two bookshop dogs, both Cairn terriers. The other is named Robbie. I only mention it because it makes a charming footnote. Compare Selected Works and its bookshop cat. This is an affiliate link: League of Super Heroes: Rise of the Villain (#1) (Party Game Society Hit Party Game) by Celeste Ayers. $2.99 from Smashwords.com The League of Super Heroes HQ is under attack! A Super Hero went missing last night. Looks like someone is out for blood… someone is killing heroes… but who? Who amongst you has turned from Super Hero to Super Villain? It’s time to suit up and take control of this evil once and for all. The fate of the world is at stake. Will the good guys be victorious in sniffing out the tyrants?

Mabon Greetings

Blessed be! The Wheel of the Year turns to Mabon, the autumnal equinox, also known as harvest tide or the “witches' Thanksgiving.” Its ancient antecedent was the second of the three Celtic harvest festivals, in between Lughnasa (August 1st, also known by the Christianized name Lammas) and Samhain (the harvest of winter meat, when the grazing animals were brought down from the hills for the winter, October 31). 

Mabon is a period of equal day and night, exactly in between Midsummer Night and the Winter Solstice. What exactly is Mabon as a Neopagan/Wiccan celebration? In modern practice, it's largely a harvest festival for enjoying autumn-gathered foods. It's also a solemn time for reflection on mortality; the goddess in her dark/death-bringer aspect may be recalled at this time. 

In agricultural symbolism, Mabon represents the death of the Green Man* – the crops now die so that human beings can store up food for winter. This is sometimes symbolized by the “sacrifice” or burning of a straw man, the Harvest Lord. The last sheaf of grain to be harvested is sometimes dressed up to become the Harvest Queen. The Harvest Queen is not burned, because she represents fertility and the hope for a good harvest again the following year.

I haven't read this one - the Henry Treece that I've read was 'Red Queen.' 

Because the power of the sun appears to be declining as we now head toward the Winter Solstice, Mabon can be a time to mark the passage of loved ones (as well as a time of mourning for the Green Man and/or the sun god). If you happen to pass a grave during Mabon, you're supposed to acknowledge the person who died and make your respects.

Various ancient Celtic legends have to do with Mabon. One has to do with a Welsh god named Mabon who is born from the womb of Mother Earth – the Earth is quite literally his mother, Modron – springing forth full of knowledge and strength he gained from his mother. (The goddess Modron comes down to us in Arthurian legend as Morgan.)

Another legend has to do with the Irish gods Lugh and Tanist. The twin brothers have opposite functions – Lugh is the god of light, and Tanist is the god of darkness. At Mabon, Tanist defeats Lugh, sits on his throne and steals Lugh's lover, the goddess Tailltiu. Nine months later – at the Summer Solstice – Tailltu gives birth to...well, Tanist. He dies and is reborn every year, and the legend of the dueling brothers relates to the legend of the holly and oak kings. 

However, it's a bit difficult to get really good sources for either of these legends, so take them each with a grain of salt. For example, if we turn to Encyclopedia Mythica:

- An article on Mabon is included, mentioning that Mabon is the son of "mother goddess" and lived in Annwn, which the encyclopedia names as the Welsh underworld but does not link with the mother-goddess's womb

- An article on Modron, without reference to her as Mother Earth, calling her only "a Welsh goddess" and a prototype of the Arthurian Morgan. 

- An article on Lugh, which doesn't mention him being a god of the sun or of light (although his fertility magic is related to the ripening of the crops, which was celebrated with a 30-day summer festival which was the antecedent of modern Lughnasa) and names his consort as Rosmerta (the Gaulish goddess of "fire, warmth, and abundance;" J.K. Rowling named the Three Broomsticks barmaid after her, perhaps for Madam Rosmerta's ability to dispense an abundance of butterbeers). 

- No article on Tanist. Wikipedia says that "tanaiste" (with an accent on the first a) is an Irish Gaelic word meaning second-in-command, heir, or first deputy of the clan chief or king. Ireland still uses the word to indicate the deputy prime minister. The Wikipedia entry also says that James Frazer, in The Golden Bough, used the word to designate a "substitute for the sacred king." To say that the god Lugh has a tanaiste or tanist may simply be a way of saying that he had a highly-honored "deputy" who was sacrificed in his place. 

However, in the holly king-oak king tradition, when Lugh's reign was over, Lugh would be sacrificed to make room for Tanist. Then Tanist's reign would end, and Tanist would be sacrificed to make room for Lugh in a never-ending cycle. 

- An article on Tailltu (spelled there with only one L) that names her not as Lugh's consort, but as his nurse. 

However, it's certainly possible that Tailltu and Rosmerta are different aspects of the same goddess, and it's certainly not unknown for a fertility/agricultural god to have a mother who, in another aspect or phase, is also his lover - it's an agricultural metaphor for the relationship between the earth (mother) and seed-bearing crop (son). 

Another myth that accounts for the declining daylight at this time of year is the myth of Persephone's descent into the Underworld, which is sometimes observed at Mabon. The grain-goddess Demeter is in mourning when her daughter Persephone goes into the Underworld, and her mourning is another aspect that gives Mabon a somewhat sad, solemn character in contrast to the joy we usually associated with harvest/thanksgiving celebrations.

Here is a review of the book Persephone (Daughters of Zeus), a book written by Kaitlin Bevis. The review is written by Abbey at Finding My Forever. 

Two more Persephone books that I read and reviewed over the past year:

Miss Underworld by Rachel Kechagias

Cora: The Unwilling Queen by Amy Hutchinson

Read more at The White Goddess, Earth Witchery, Love of the Goddess, and Mystickal Realms.



*In other versions of the legend, the death of Green Man, or the Holly King/Holly Knight (Sir Gawain's Green Knight) is associated with the Winter Solstice and the Lord of Misrule or Fool who was sacrificed after his moment of glory at the solstice festival. In his place, the Oak King would rule until he was deposed by the Holly King at Midsummer, i.e. the summer solstice. In this case, it would be easy to associate dark Tanist with the Holly King and bright Lugh with the Oak King, but then Mabon would only be the halfway point in Tanist's rule. Perhaps rather than his death, Mabon commemorates the Holly King's/Green Man's/Tanist's waning power.



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Is It Autumn Yet?

The last couple of nights, the weather has been beautiful for sleeping with the window open. Although more hot days are forthcoming, there's also a pleasant hint of autumn in the atmosphere. The equinox, and its Neopagan celebration Mabon, may still be two weeks away, but Rosh Hoshanah is upon us, and it already feels like the season has turned.

U.S. Labor Day was this past Monday, and in the Lake Michigan region, this feels like a seasonal holiday rather than only a national calender holiday. My mom and I went on a road trip to Plymouth, Indiana, for the annual Blueberry Festival. We walked around in the sun, refreshing ourselves with blueberry shortcakes, then fish tacos cooked on the grill, washed down with a blueberry iced coffee.

Huckleberries: closely related to blueberries, but not exactly the same

One of the indigenous peoples of the southwest Michigan/northwest Indiana/eastern Illinois and Wisconsin region, the Pokagon band of the Potawatomi (one of the Algonquin peoples, Pokégnek Bodéwadmik in their own language), celebrates this time of year with a pow wow, attended by several of the regional indigenous tribes. The name of this event is the Kee-Boon-Mein-Kaa pow wow, translated as "I have quit picking huckleberries*." The end of berry-picking season has been celebrated at this time, in this place, as far back as the Pokagon can remember. 

By the way, there is also a Potawatomi band in Kansas; they were forcibly moved there by the U.S government. When I went to Kansas last year, it made me incredibly sad to see how flat, treeless and riverless Kansas was. Imagine your culture was based upon living off of forest resources, that wild berries and fish went into many of your cultural dishes, that weaving river grasses into intricate baskets was one of your favorite visual fine art forms, and then you were forcibly moved to a dry, flat land with few rivers and scarcely any trees. It makes me angry every time I think about it. 

Autumn 2013 Events:

Sept. 22 - Autumnal Equinox

Oct. 15 - release of When Did You See Her Last? by Lemony Snicket

Oct. 18 - release of Kill Your Darlings movie with Daniel Radcliffe as Allen Ginsberg

Oct. 22 - release of Allegiant by Veronica Roth

Nov. 11 - official release of Lady Gaga's ARTPOP album

Nov. 15 - release of The Book Thief movie

Nov. 22 - release of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire movie

Nov. 26 - third book in Barbara Longley's Perfect, Indiana series, A Change of Heart, releases

Nov. 27 - Hanukkah begins at sundown

"Kore" by Lisa Sotilis, Creative Commons license.

I've already written detailed posts on Mabon scheduled for the 22nd-23rd of September. Still, I was thumbing through an old journal the other day, I came across this, copied from a Unitarian Universalist church bulletin's Pagan column (unfortunately, I haven't written down the name of the columnist):

"The wheel turns to Mabon - the Fall Equinox. Mabon marks the second harvest on the Pagan calendar...

"In Greek mythology, Autumn begins as Persephone returns to the Underworld to live with Hades, her husband. The myth says that Demeter's daughter, Kore, had taken a day to pick flowers in a meadow when the Earth opened up, and Hades pulled the girl into the Underworld to become his bride. Kore's name became Persephone when she married Hades. For nine straight days, Demeter searched for Kore. Helios, the Sun God, informed her that her brother, Zeus, had given the girl to Hades. In fury, Demeter cursed the Earth so that it would yield no crops. Zeus sent her a frantic message inquiring as to why she had prevented growth on the planet. She replied that there would be no regeneration of vegetation on the Earth until her daughter, Kore, was safely returned.

"Zeus immediately dispatched Hermes into the Underworld to retrieve the girl. Hades did not want to relinquish his bride permanently. Ever the negotiator, Zeus declared that Kore-Persephone would live with her mother during one half of the year and return to her husband, Hades, during the other half. In thanks, Demeter lifted the curse on the Earth, creating Spring. Every year hence, during her time of greatest sorrow, Demeter renews the curse, as her daughter returns to Hades and the Underworld."

The curse is starting to take effect. It feels like it should be Autumn now, but all things in their due time. For now I'll enjoy the late summer.

Well, maybe with one Starbucks pumpkin spice latte...

*Gaylussacia baccata and related species, which if you are an English speaker not from North America you may call bilberries.