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SHE WAS THROWN IN WITH the tributes. They were called tributes, sent by Athens every seven years since they lost the war. The reality was they were sacrifices, human flesh to feed the half man, half bull that was the Minotaur. By some twist of fate, he was Ariadne’s twin. She had never been able to accept that she had shared a womb with someone who preferred to eat the flesh of children while they screamed.
There is a prince among the tributes. The prince is not just royalty but the crown prince of Athens, heir the the throne. His father was the god of the sea, Poseidon. His pedigree is no small thing, but the way he announced it loudly to her like she was hard of hearing made it lose much of it’s effect. He then visibly looked Ariadne up and down like he was deciding whether to buy her at the marketplace or not. He seemed to like what he saw, trying to grab her ass.
Ariadne smacked his hand away, but that didn’t seem to deter him the slightest. He wrapped an arm around her waist like a snake and vowed to the room at large, full of dejected and terrified tributes,
“None of you shall perish this night, nor will I allow this to ever happen again. For I will end the senseless system at it’s source. I will kill the monstrous Minotaur!” The tributes all cheered, for varying values of cheer.
One girl stared at him with a flat expression and patted her hands together, making no sound at all. Her younger brother on the other hand, was wildly cheering and had jumped to his feet and had joined a few of the others chanting “Prince Theseus!”
“When we return to Athens, I’ll make you my bride.” He told Ariadne confidently, despite not even having told her his name. There was a massive difference between taking a lover in the following of a god famous for drunken orgies and being the wife of a future king. A foreign wife and queen in a land her father had ravaged with war and routinely sentenced their youth to slaughter, no less.
Theseus was an idiot. A horny one, given the way his hand once more dipped down and caressed her ass. Ariadne grabbed the offending hand in hers and did her best to distract him.
“I have a sword hidden in the labyrinth.” She told him. Mostly because her father had threatened her with the labyrinth before and she hadn’t wanted to be helpless should the worst happen.
The distraction worked and his face lit with eagerness, hands squeezing hers too hard. “Yes! Is there a way I can navigate the labyrinth?”
She looked away, biting her lip as she thought. She caught his gaze sharpening and focusing on her mouth. “I have a ball of thread. If you tie it to the start then-”
“Then I’ll be able to find my way back to the start!” Theseus cuts her off and finished the sentence for her.
“I'll guide the rest of the tributes out a secret way while you battle the Minotaur. You’ll have to fight the guards once you return to the entrance of the Labyrinth. They will try to stop you from leaving or getting to the shipyard, dead Minotaur or not.” Ariadne warned, heart aching as she realized there would be no way for her to get back to the camp before it had moved.
“You’re kidding. Why can’t I go in first, alone? I could defeat the monster and return without anyone else being in any danger.” Theseus scowled at her as if he thought she could do anything about it. She might have been able to before she tried to leave, but that was then. This was now.
“Because the first year when tributes were released one per day, and after the city council petitioned the king for him to release them all at once. The screams went on for two weeks and were disruptive to civic order.” She informed him with a wince.
He grimaced, wide mouth twisting downward. “The screams of innocents inconveniencing them.” Theseus spat to the side, and Ariadne couldn’t blame him for his disgust.
“It’s not the citizen’s fault their king is the way he is.” She told him with a heavy sigh. “I will guide them out safely as I can. You will have to tell them to obey me or risk death. The labyrinth is full of deadly traps.” She fibbed slightly. There were traps, but they deactivated on the night the tributes were sent in. They existed only to keep the Minotaur in. The confusing nature of the labyrinth itself kept all who went in lost until the Minotaur hunted them down.
Theseus didn’t ask how she knew how to escape or navigate the labyrinth. He just nodded and then he kissed her. While Ariadne was still in shock he said, “I will speak to them.”
He left to speak to the tributes on the other side of the large waiting chamber, not waiting for a response.
She touched her mouth gingerly. It had felt like he was trying to claim her. Like she was a thing he could have. To own. The way he thrust his tongue inside her mouth and probed at her without her consent made her scrub her lips futilely to get the invasive sensation off.
He was planning on doing that to her again. Ariadne had the feeling he would say he was claiming his ‘prize’. If his dick felt as violating as his tongue had inside her...She shuddered and vowed to get him to find her unappealing enough to let her go.
Going from the prisoner of one man to another wasn’t a pleasant prospect.
* * *
THESEUS hadn’t been pleased she had taken a length of the thread that was to guide him through the labyrinth from the yarn ball. She had pointed to the the youngest child, who had started crying in terror. It was the child that had been jumping up and dawn, chanting the prince’s name after his speech.
“Do you really resent sharing the thread so that they won’t get lost and die alone in the labyrinth, monster or not?” Theseus had finally subsided his sulking after that, stalking away to brood against a wall and stare meaningfully into the unlit labyrinth before them. The heavy metal gates had torches welded into their holders that lit only the entrance to the labyrinth.
She couldn’t imagine what the sobbing boy’s family had done to get a child less than ten sent to be killed by the Minotaur. His sister, holding his hand was just this side of fully grown. Ariadne couldn’t imagine how Athens sent anyone at all. There wouldn’t even be bodies to send home. There never had been.
Daedalus had been the one who to design and oversee the production of the labyrinth. He had felt responsible for the senseless tradegies taking place. So he had been the one to retrieve the pitiful remains, chancing an encounter with the hopefully sated Minotaur. Then he would bury them with coins so they could have speedy passage to the afterlife waiting on the other side of the river Styx.
He did that for two sets of tributes, until he got caught doing so by the King’s personal guards. He had escaped the King’s personal savage beating alive, but would forever walk with a limp like his patron god.
Seven years later, after the next batch of tributes died, Daedalus’s son and apprentice Icarus just buried the coins for them without any bodies. He did so with a brief prayer for their souls to cross the river Styx peacefully. It might not count without their bodies, but at least it was more than not trying anything at all.
Perhaps the gods of the dead would have mercy on the souls of the dead tributes. Maybe they would grant them passage, despite the unorthodox method of payment.
Shortly after that, Icarus died during his and Daedalus’s desperate flight from the country. His body had never been retrieved from the sea. Ariadne had followed his example and buried coins for Icarus to cross over with a prayer.
There had been no tributes in the seven years since. If any of them heading into the Labyrinth died this night, there was no one left to bury coins. It would be a long hundred year wait on the banks of the Styx for passage to the peace of Asphodel Meadows.
The tributes followed her silently, clinging to one another.
The traps had been disabled, making their winding passage in the pitch darkness almost easy. “I thought there were traps in here?” Whispered one of the braver ones from behind Ariadne’s lead.
“They were disabled for this night so that nothing interferes with the Minotaur’s hunt. A number of the previous group of sacrifices chose to commit suicide that way.” She was silent a moment, the memory of their bodies overwhelming her briefly. “That displeased King Minos.”
Several of the sacrifices had a few choice words about that.
“And you just lead people in to die horrifically?” A belligerent voice from the line spoke up as they approached the final wall. “How are you any better than him?”
“I ran away to avoid doing just that.” Ariadne said tiredly. “I got caught. Notice me being in here with you rather than out there giving out directions? My father doesn’t like anyone.”
The discontented murmuring went quiet after that, but Ariadne didn’t believe that meant it would be gone forever. Hopefully their obedience would last long enough for all of them to make it out of the labyrinth alive.
“Now everyone take off your clothes.” She ordered when she found the notch in the wall she was looking for. The shrieks were more manly than feminine, which was amusing. “Unless one of you wants to stay behind and be minus an arm?” No one said anything, and Ariadne realized how strange her order was from their perspective. She explained, “I need something to trigger this trap. It will squeeze whatever is put in it and lift the wall, but only briefly and not very high so we will have to be fast.”
“Here.” A girl handed her a wad of clothing. “I’m dedicating myself to Artemis after this shit. I don’t care if anyone sees me naked.”
Hearing this, the rest of the male tributes hand Ariadne their clothes without grumbling. She made a large, compressed roll of clothes. “Ready?”
She waited for their affirmative noises and shoves the bundle in the hole as hard as she could. The wall rumbled and began to lift, the full moon spilling light into the dark labyrinth as bright as day. The painfully young tributes sprung into action and rolled out under the grinding, slowly lifting wall. They go one after another in quick succession.
When Ariadne was the only one left, she stopped pushing the bundle into the wall sconce and the wall slams down like a striking sword. She sighed, and pressed the back of her head against the stone wall. She began to shake with adrenaline and fear, sliding down until she was kneeling at the bottom of the wall. She caught her breath after a few minutes and then got up, wiping her tears away.
Either Theseus would meet her back at the entrance, or she would follow the thread to him. If he was dead, she would steal the sword off his body and kill her way out. It was more likely that she would be killed, by either the Minotaur or the guards but she would try.
* * *
ARIADNE was at the entrance only moments before the demigod Prince Theseus returned, carrying the Minotaur’s bull shaped head by the ear. Blood still dripped quickly from its mangled stump of a neck, pooling on the floor and hot against her bare feet. Some part of her brain whispered to her, ‘That’s your twin’. She brushed it aside, along with the angry accusing stare of the head.
The rest of her was occupied by the fact Theseus dropped the head and pressed her against the wall, mouth once more on her. This time his hands were digging under her dress, dragging feverishly on her underclothes. She shoved him back.
“There are guards!” She hissed, trying to cover her shaking. “They patrol to make sure no one escapes. If they catch you off guard like that, they’ll kill you.”
This common sense seemed to cool his ardor. He nodded, sweaty hair sticking to his forehead. “You’re right. Let’s get out of here.” He picked up the head as large as her torso one handed with apparent ease and brushed past her.
Ariadne swallowed, closing her eyes at the thought of being alone on a ship with him and then took a breath and followed.
* * *