A goddess is taken to the underworld as the king's bride; her father knew everything and her mother knew nothing. In this retelling of the Hymn of Demeter, mother and daughter will do whatever it takes to free themselves, no matter the cost.
Book I...
Iris of the dragonfly golden wings, Iris of the three floating panels skirt, Iris, the daughter of Thaumas and Electra, Iris, the first caduceus bearer, the ewer holder of Styx.
Iris and Arce were the twin daughters of the ocean. Their father was the sea's wonder deity, and their mother was a nymph. Born during the Titanomachy, their affiliations severed the sisters, while the curly-blond-haired Iris chose the Olympians, and her iridescence-winged sister Arce made a last-minute switch to the enemy camp of the Titans.
Iris forgave her sister at the end of the war, but not Zeus. He tore her wings off and sentenced her to Tartarus. Iris had never seen Arce again, nor her wings; she had once tried to find them but only to be caught red-handed by Zeus.
Since then, her successor, the young Hermes, became an Olympian overnight.
Leaving Iris to be the Herald of a forgotten wartime to the Herald of the Queen Hera to only be the ewer bearer to the Goddess Styx from the Underworld. She went from delivering the words of God to punishing those who perjured their oaths in hell.
Cruel was her task for someone blessed with the power to travel the earth on a rainbow. Iris brought colourful hope to the dying sky, but she fell short on Demeter's expectations.
Iris couldn't fail at that last chance.
Standing in front of a huge canker on a tree throne, she quavered. Iris cringed, her voice already breaking before she could implore, "Lady Demeter, father Zeus, whose wisdom is everlasting, has summoned you back to Mount Olympus—your home. Come with me and let not the message I brought pass unheeded."
No one answered her plea. Only deep cracks opened wider on the old sapling, and then large bulges crawled along its body. They sank its bark and stained it until a slough formed itself into Demeter's pale face. She towered above the little Iris, her head hovering within a dead conifer's corpse. As she saw her guest, her eyes flashed red before a playful grin plastered on her face.
Iris sucked her cheeks in, pleading in the most subdued way. "Please!"
"He now wants to talk!" Demeter answered with a whimper of mirth. Iris tried to join the hilarity, but there was no humour in Demeter's statement, and that slight distraction blinded Iris from the long, twisting branches wrapping around her golden wings. Upon noticing them at last, Iris clutched her arms to her chest, but it was too late.
In a fit of rage, Demeter ripped Iris' wings off before tossing them to the pleading mortals.
Crying out in agony, Iris' body collapsed down, and she bled to the feet of the evil queen Demeter, who couldn't contain herself. With a sweep from her twig-like arm, she kicked Iris right back into the rainbow slide, where she had come from.
Stepping out of her home at last, Demeter revealed her new self to the world. She emerged from the shadows, the flame of her now ash-coloured hair with ropes of vines girdled around the waist of her dark robe. And she stood there on with her crackled porcelain face rising towards the almighty sky, and her arms spread out as a cross.
"Give me back my daughter, Zeus!" Her toneless voice exploded on this sudden, loud declaration. Thunder rumbled in response to her piercing cry. Responding to her fierce roar to the heavens, the last mortals who worshipped her joined her in her lamentations. One after another, their frail voices repeated the words of their mistress.
Their unexpected support moved the heartless Demeter, but she couldn't cease the destruction of their world. As the echos at her feet grew noisier, she let a tear fall down to them before repeating her demand again.
Their joined supplications travelled from the fading earth to the light well of the sky until they reached Zeus' ears. He was no longer on his throne but at the centre of his palace, where he had reversed Hestia's hearth into a giant telescope pointed only at Demeter.
All the women from his court were there with him, but for Zeus, they would all be the scapegoats of his pride. "I surrounded myself with all of you, and none of you could have predicted that to happen."
Only one soft voice dared to answer him among the frightened faces. "What could we have predicted for you?" Themis stepped forward, claiming herself to be the spokeswoman of the Zeus household's revolt. "Us, who are all being held here by the daughters you impregnated us with?" She stared at Zeus with her chin up and a grin dancing over her lips. "I would have done the same if you had married off my Astraia without my consent."
As soon as her mouth pronounced her final syllable, Zeus seized Themis by the back of her neck. "If you are so unhappy, then get out!" Zeus screamed into her ear before flinging Themis' body on the floor. She licked the blood off her lips as her sisters helped her stand up. Zeus shook his head at them before bellowing at them: "Out!"
Veins thickened at his throat, and in order to shield themselves from his obvious anger, the women clung to one another. With time, Themis brought them all together as one. One army was devoted to surviving the execrable desires of that one god, and when Themis decided to walk out on him, they all followed her.
Loneliness suddenly embraced Zeus again. This sad and cold feeling was his worst nightmare. Surrounding himself with women was not because of their charms, but to fill the void he had created in his own heart.
The disease started in his childhood when nymphs and gigantes raised him instead of his mother. Athena, who had witnessed her father at his best and worst, made her way to him, leaving the shaking Hecate behind.
Athena was one of the few people who genuinely cared about Zeus. No matter how awful he was to her, she would always stand by his side. Being his right-hand man and the balance to his unstable personality, she was the only woman he could never love otherwise than with respect.
Huddling against his body, Athena's head rested on his back. "You will never be alone, father." Zeus found comfort in Athena's gesture and put one of his hands over her arm.
"The world needs you." Her hushed words were what Zeus needed the most. He was reborn in an instant as he wrenched himself from her embrace and ran back to his throne. Sitting back again in his seat, he was all delighted, as if a brand new day had just risen in the sky.
"Right, Iris was a good try." Zeus thought to himself. "We know now that Demeter is really angry, and she won't cease her grieving." He crossed his legs before an idea came to him. "I know what to do! Athena, get Hermes; let's send him to the underworld. Only he would know how to preserve my righteousness and sweet talk Hades into complying with my request."
Was the father the ruling body? And the daughter, the neck bending over the head? Had Zeus followed the order of Athena without knowing it? Who had the upper hand in this chaotic realm of the deep blue sky?
Doubt lingered in Hecate's mind, but she felt relieved that at last the world would be saved.
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