| |
––––––––
ARIADNE WAS SO BUSY chewing over the deal that had been struck, that she barely noticed their arrival into the Underworld. They landed silently in the courtyard of a castle that was mostly concealed in gloom.
There was no visible source of light besides the occasional glowing fungus trailing beside a walking path. Yet everything was dimly visible after a moment of letting Ariadne’s eyes adjust. In was a twilight wonderland of shadows and as Ariadne looked, sources of light began to appear. Candles in windows, strange phosphorus blue glows in the distance and the intense white of stars. Frogs warbled unseen, hunting the occasional cricket chirp.
“It’s so restful.” Ariadne relaxed with a sigh. Dionysus was already bounding off the chariot to hug a surprised Hades.
Persephone turned to her and stopped. “Your eyes...”
“Oh, right. I forget about them most of the time.” Ariadne touched a spot under her eyes. “Helios is my maternal grandfather. My eyes change color occasionally, but that seems to be it for inheritance.” She had attempted to set people on fire with her mind as a child, but had no such luck.
“You forgot about them.” Persephone repeated, holding a hand out to steady Ariadne as she stepped out of the chariot. “Your glowing eyes that emit light in the dark.”
“It’s not like I can see them.” Ariadne pointed out reasonably. “Normally they don’t glow or anything either.” She paused. “Just in the labyrinth, really.” Come to think of it, that had probably been eerie for the last set of tributes.
Persephone looked far too intrigued. “I should visit that place one day.”
Ariadne almost didn’t want to ask, but the sudden fear of waking up with her dead twin standing at the foot of her bed pushed her into it. “Is my brother...” She starts but has no idea what she is actually asking.
Persephone seemed to understand her mostly unspoken question. She patted Ariadne on the head. “He is kept far from here and cannot leave where he is placed. His power when alive was tremendous, but I am the co-ruler of this realm and he is very dead. You have nothing to fear from him.”
Ariadne felt a tension she hadn’t known she was holding abruptly leave her almost boneless with relief. Then guilt set in. “He’s my twin, but I just never could escape the sensation he hated me and wanted me dead.” She admitted with a wince as they approached a smiling Hades and cheerily chattering Dionysus.
“He’s your what?” Persephone looked at her like she had fallen off the chariot and taken head damage. The other two stilled their conversation to blatantly eavesdrop together.
“My twin. Shared a womb for a while.” Ariadne repeated. “What’s so strange about that?”
Persephone looked at her husband, who looked politely baffled at whatever question she was asking with her eyes. She turned back to Ariadne. “Do you even have any mortal human in you?”
“Not currently.” She said reflexively then hid her face in her hands and hissed at a snickering Dionysus through her fingers, “You are such a bad influence.”
Persephone either didn’t get the joke or blessedly faked ignorance and apathy. “I really need to get a look at that labyrinth and that cursed bull. Demigod or not, Pasiphaë shouldn’t have been able to conceive a normal child from the bull.”
“Well, I’ve always theorized he sucked all the magic up in the womb. All the other women in my family are terrifying witches.” Ariadne suggested, unable to hide her jealousy. “All I got was an evil twin.”
“Yes, but since you’re a bastard, we’re not actually related, distantly or otherwise.” Dionysus said with a lascivious waggle of his eyebrows that made her giggle.
“No. Absolutely not.” Persephone said, dropping a hand on Ariadne. A strange sensation like viscous water settled over her and then was gone.
Hades looked at Dionysus. “What precisely happened to have my wife drag both of you here for supervision and put your lover under a chastity spell?”
Dionysus looked mutinous, glaring at what Ariadne could only assume was the spell and not her. Because if he was looking at her like that, there wouldn’t need to be a chastity spell at all, he’d be sleeping alone.
“Mixing godly powers and sex with your mortal lover is a bad idea.” He finally conceded after another few seconds of pouting.
“Dionysus!” Hades scolded, putting a hand over his face. “You could have killed her!”
“I thought I had.” He admitted soberly, eyes locked onto Ariadne. “She’s not taking it as seriously as I’d like.”
“After this winter you want have to worry about that.” Persephone reassured him, adding to her husband, “I’ve offered to turn Ariadne into a goddess as a wedding gift. After they exhibit some self control.” She added pointedly when Dionysus let out a small whoop of excitement.
Hades raised a finger. “You already put a chastity spell on her. Doesn't that count as cheating?”
Persephone sniffed. “They need all the help they can get.”
* * *
ARIADNE woke up the next morning to a shouting match. Crawling out of bed, she stopped to have a drink of wine at the bottle thoughtfully left beside the bed. She savored the taste. It was never something she had told Dionysus, but wine almost universally tasted bitter to her. She had come to associate the taste and smell with him and found it comforting despite never quite enjoying the taste.
After drinking a few cups of wine crouched beside the bed, Ariadne finally began to tune into what sounded like an argument outside the room getting ready to turn into a borderline riot.
“Absolutely not!” Someone vaguely familiar was howling at the top of their lungs.
“I don’t give a shit!” Dionysus was yelling back.
Hm. That wasn’t a happy sign.
Ariadne stood up with a sigh and staggered out of the bedroom and into the hall, still feeling wobbly. No one spoke, silent and tense. Dionysus was barefoot, fists clenched and eyes gleaming and wearing only low slung pants. Ariadne appreciated the view for a minute before taking in the rest of the room.
Opposite him was Persephone, looking beyond irritated. Her hair was fluffed out around her, crown nothing but metal spikes with sharp edged tips. Hades stood off to the side, watching the show with raised eyebrows. Ariadne realized she was still holding onto her wine cup and handed it to Hades. He took it with a confused, startled look but she was already heading to Dionysus.
Ariadne slid an arm across his shoulders, tugging him into a one armed hug. “I woke up alone. Positively neglected, I tell you.” She stuck her lower lip out and widened her eyes comically wide and looked at a bemused Dionysus through her eyelashes. “Alone. So alone.”
He snorted, tension visibly draining out of him. He wrapped his arm around her waist and tucked his fingers into her sleep pants waistband to cup her hip. “I’m sorry.” He leaned over to kiss the tip of her nose. “Forgive me?” He asked with a raised eyebrow and half smile.
Ariadne sighed dramatically. “I suppose I must. Fine. The wedding is back on.”
He paled. “What? When was it off?”
“Presumably when she woke up alone.” Persephone filled in, hair losing it’s frizzy puff to coil neatly around her head. “Make it up to her and leave the management of my kingdom to my husband and I.”
“What did I miss?”Ariadne looked between them, rubbing Dionysus’s arm when he tensed up. Persephone shook her head and left, taking Hades with her and leaving Dionysus to fill in Ariadne.
“That demigod Theseus is here. As a guest.” He practically hissed, pupils going thin and sharp in contrasting his black eyeliner.
Ariadne didn’t like hearing that, but didn’t care too much about it either. “Quit letting him live in your head. Do what I did and forget him.”
Dionysus blinked. “How did you manage that, after what he did to you?”
Ariadne leered playfully at him, hand sliding from his shoulder down his back at grab a handful of ass. “I focused on the better things I had going forward.” He gave her a slow smile, skin darkening on the back of his neck.
She let go of him and stepped back. “But if you want to spend time with him and not me, well.” She crossed her arms and sniffed pointedly.
Dionysus rolled his eyes, but didn’t stop smiling. “Alright, fine, I get the point.” He reached out and pulled her close, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head. “What do you think about mandatory flower crowns at the wedding?”
“I raise you mandatory flower crowns that we pick out for the guests.” Ariadne agreed, trying not to focus on delightful shudders the butterflies in her stomach gave her at the thought of marrying her best friend. That beautiful, sweet god smiling at her loved her and wanted to live with her. Forever.
There was the sound of a bull roaring in the distance, so muffled it couldn’t have been heard unless it was listened for. A familiar sound, one Ariadne had thought she would never have to hear again.
“Do you hear that?” Her voice was hushed, the tingle of fear creeping up her spine. The feeling of being hunted from afar crept up an her, the sensation pacing of feet approaching with hungry intent.
“I don’t hear anything.” Dionysus admitted after a minute.
Ariadne waited a moment, but heard the sound again. She swallowed. “We need to talk to Persephone.”
They found her around the corner, pressing Hades into a wall and hands fisted in the front of his clothes. “Was that what you heard?” Dionysus teased, but sobered at her expression.
The couple broke apart. “Can you hear that?” Ariadne didn’t wait for the other couple to ask what she wanted.
Hades frowned, head tilting to the side as the sound echoed again. “It’s...that shouldn’t be possible. The Minotaur escaped his confinement.” He shared a look with his wife before vanishing, presumably to take care of the escaped soul.
Persephone studied Ariadne with only a thin veneer of humanity covering up her godly form. “I do believe I need to take a trip to talk to the Fates. There is something strange going on. You’ll be accompanying me.”
Before Dionysus could do more than open his mouth in protest, Persephone had Ariadne by the arm and they were gone.
* * *
ARIADNE blinked, the world warping around her and Persephone until they were at the mouth of a cave. The entrance was carved with beautiful images of weaving and painted with bold colors to bring them to life. There was a curtain of beads over the entrance that seemed to be made of spider silk and millions of tiny drops of mist. It gave the shimmering appearance of a sheet of water, rippling with rainbow refractions.
Persephone let go of her arm, parted the curtain of water and light and gestured Ariadne to go inside. Ariadne looked behind her. It was a cliff with a sheer drop that made the trees at the bottom little more than green smudges. She lurched forward, nearly loosing her balance looking down the dizzying distance.
Petrified, she threw herself at the cave entrance instead of the cliff edge. Staggering inside the cave she stopped beside the waiting Persephone. From the inside, it no longer looked like a cave. It looked like the inside of a wealthy woman’s house. It was the home of a woman, three of them in fact. Three scorchingly attractive women that Ariadne had not been prepared for, any more than she had been the drop from the cliff.
They stood in a row in front of their guests, hands clasped demurely in front of them, faces empty of expression. “Welcome.” The goddesses of Fate chorused together.
“Nnngh.” Ariadne said intelligently, flustered. Persephone shot her a knowing look before addressing the other women.
“As usual, I’m sure you know more about why I am here than I do.” Persephone said with resignation and no little bemusement.
The three women smiled as one, and Ariadne felt her brain start to reboot when they showcased far too many teeth. Ariadne had thought Demeter had a problem. Demeter had actually been around humans at some point in her life. The Fates... chose teeth that made Ariadne question if they had ever seen a human. Humans did not have teeth like that. Things that lived on the bottom of the ocean had teeth like that.
“We do.” The middle one spoke, sounding perfectly normal and not at all with a speech impediment from strange dental choices.
“You wish to know how one of your realm can break free from your control, which should be absolute with the entrance of Princess Ariadne into your kingdom.”
Ariadne, hearing it put like that, abruptly also wanted answers. But not about the teeth. She could die or live forever and be happy never knowing that.
The middle one, apparently the spokeswoman, approached Ariadne. “You were born too soon. You were supposed to be born after the Minotaur.”
“That didn’t happen.” Ariadne leaned back as the goddess of Fate leaned forward to peer at her.
“He could not absorb you. You had developed too far once he was conceived.” She told Ariadne, still studying her front like Ariadne was an interesting woven tapestry with intricate details.
“Is that why he was always been pissed at me? Failure to eat me in the womb?” Ariadne grimaced and shuffled half a step behind Persephone. Let her get eyeballed.
“Indeed.” The Fate told Ariadne. “But he will not eat you now. Not while your fate’s thread is tied to his. It is what allows him to defy the rulers of this realm, along with your presence.”
“Say what?” Ariadne and Persephone said at the same time.
The middle Fate stepped back to stand with her sisters that were still placidly watching. The one on the far right smiled at them both and answered while Ariadne was repressing her flinch.
“The Minotaur didn’t manage to absorb you, that is true. But he did manage to tie his fate thread to yours. He used it to find you, always. He is using the connection to your living soul to escape the control of Persephone and Hades in their own realm. A fearsome monster.” She seemed impressed, and Ariadne had a good idea the goddess didn’t leave her cave too much to deal with the rest of the world.
“How do we sever this connection?” Persephone asked immediately, not wavering when all three sets of eyes shot to and focused on her.
The last Fate stepped forward to stand in front of Ariadne and Persephone. “We sever her thread. With them both dead, you would have complete control again.” She made a snipping motion with two fingers. Ariadne felt her breath freeze in her lungs and had half a second to be grateful that Dionysus had not come with them.
* * *