Way of Queens

preamble

Author's Note: Heya, my angels! I was given the opportunity by Mindshare and Wattpad to write this story imagining a Digital Utopia. Some of you have asked about how Queen Sienna Rose in Enamoured managed to become a queen in the first place, knowing how women in Greece were oppressed including the goddesses too. Ironically, Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, was trapped in a loveless marriage; Athena, the wisest of beings, always deferred to Zeus; and Hera, Goddess of Marriage, was married to the worst serial adulterer ever known. The Greek Goddesses shared in the oppression of ancient mortal women, and their example is important to the history of feminism. Thus I hope through this short story, you get a glimpse of what she actually did in order to change the women's roles and the perspectives about women within the Hellenicus.

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The Hellenicus

CENTURIES AGO, THERE WERE THREE PARENTS: The Sun, The Earth, and The Moon. Each of them produced offspring. The Sun produced the man, The Earth produced the woman, and The Moon produced the androgyne. Each of these three species was a double, two men, two women, or a man and a woman; one head with two faces, four arms, four legs, and two sets of genitalia.

They were strong and fast and possessed a great deal of freedom and power. One day, these creatures decided to travel to Mount Olympus and attack the gods. They were foolish, for they should have known that it would be impossible to defeat the gods no matter how hard they tried.

The gods pondered what they should do to reprimand these foolish humans who were powerless against them. Zeus considered shooting them with his thunderbolts and burning them to the ground until they turned to dust, just like he'd done to the giants. Poseidon thought he should drown the fools with the greatest wave the world had ever seen. But the gods loved a little drama for their entertainment and amusement, and those ideas were too boring. Moreover, they didn't want to lose the offerings that the humans gave them each month. Who would worship the gods if the humans didn't exist? Who would spread the word of the greatness of Zeus or the other gods?

They could not destroy humans because they had too much to lose. However, they could not let these fools go unpunished either. Zeus realized that the humans weren't the real threat, but their arrogance had gotten the better of them. If they were stripped of their speed, strength, and confidence, he thought they would be less prideful.

After a lot of thought and consideration, Zeus finally decided to take a different course of action. He developed a creative solution as punishment for humanity's pride. If he cut the humans in half, they would only be half as fast and half as strong. It would also double the number of humans who would give tribute to the gods.

Zeus revealed his plan to his fellow Olympians and asked Apollo to help him. He cut the man-man, woman-woman, and man-woman creatures in half. These split humans lived in utter misery to the point where they refused to eat. So Apollo took pity on them, sewed up their injuries, and rearranged their bodies. Their faces, which had previously faced outward, were turned inward. Then he gathered all their skin together (like a purse) with a knot in the middle as a reminder to mankind of their original state.

After the surgery, the half-creatures ran around frantically looking for their other halves, seeking them out, embracing them, and trying to join together again. Unable to join, the creatures despaired and began to starve to death in their sorrow. Zeus, again mindful of his need for worship, decided something must be done to rejuvenate the creatures' spirits, so he instructed Apollo to create a means to rejoin them temporarily. This Apollo did by turning their genitals towards the belly side of the body.

Before the transformation, the humans had procreated by dropping seeds on the ground. But this new system created an interesting means of producing offspring. The creatures who had been double women naturally sought out women. Those who had been double men sought out the company of men. And the androgynes sought out members of the opposite sex. They did this not simply for intercourse, but so that they could become whole again and rejoin with their soulmates.

The legend said that when the two finally found each other, they would have an unspoken understanding of one another. They would feel unified, lie with each other in unity, and would know no greater joy.

What wasn't written down in history was that when Apollo had sewn some of these humans back together, he had given them a very special ability. One that allowed them to read their other half's mind, something that would help them find their soulmates. However, this special ability would not be "awakened" until these humans, which were now called the Hellenicus, had reached the age of eighteen and met their other half.