~ MACARIA ~

Can somebody please, please jack Apollo's fucking chariot?

I'll pay with VIP tickets to Little Mix's concert. I promise.

The shower wasn't cold enough and I'm still partly sleepy. Seriously, I should start charging Mom for these 'favors'; dispatching us to live out here so she could spend more time alone with dad. Not that I want to be anywhere in the Underworld during the final weeks of winter, listening to my parent's pornstar groans. I'd gladly have a molar extracted before I stayed another second in the palace while they're at it like unbridled rabbits.

I swear one of these days they're gonna bring the house down.

"Morning Kyane," I greet listlessly. Mom wishes we would love the sun and all, being a springtime goddess herself. But really, I'm about as enthusiastic in the mornings as TayTay would be in Kanye's presence.

Kyane has her head buried in that morning's newspaper so replying with a grumble seems sufficient enough to her. It feels like only yesterday, when the very sight of a newspaper gave me a headache. But Uncle Kanna told me not to worry too much…not a soul who values their prospective happiness in the afterlife would dare suspect the King's own blood. But that didn't mean I wasn't feeling guilty that mom took the rap for it.

And there goes my plan to make a few extra bucks…

"What's for breakfast?"

She points a finger at the bowl on the island; azure eyes still glued to whatever made the headlines of Olympus Daily. I slip onto the chair and remove the lid, snarling at the milky poison. "Ugh…oatmeal again?" I run my gaze along the breakfast shelf finding a variety of cereal brands. "Switch it up with Cheerios for me?"

"No Honey Nut Cheerios, no Froot Loops, no Frosties…just oats." She says without looking up from behind the paper. I made a sound, Kyane catches it and finally she looks me in the eye, "Those wouldn't make a real breakfast."

I jeer. "Grandma has plans to sponsor them."

"Oh please. Imagine the Goddess of Harvest, a woman who toils in the heat to provide for mankind, approve of those sugary abominations!" She folds the paper and dumps it on top of the counter, making a swish sound as she does. "It's that sucker Demophon who's gotten into her head."

I try my luck with an adorable, practiced pout.

"Grow up and scoff it down like the adult woman that you are!"

"I'm still a kid at heart, Kyane," I say in a small voice, resting a hand on my chest. "And kids like simple sugars."

She scoffs and crosses her arms. "Kids don't typically pine for sex."

My nose scrunches up.

"What? Suddenly you're all disgusted when I say sex?" She mocks before opening the fridge to grab some berries. "Don't try to pretend with me like you do with your yaya, Lady Macaria." She says as she rinses a few strawberries and blueberries and sprinkles them on the oatmeal. "I saw what you have…hidden in your pillowcase."

My heart misses a beat. Shit. I totally forgot to stash it after last night.

Popping some berries into her mouth, she leans on the counter. "Nothing to declare? Not even Aphrodite's Tryst and a pink vibrator?"

"Shushh!" I whip my head around although I know there is no one else in the kitchen. "My God, Kyane!"

She does a hair flip. "So?"

"Okay! Okay, I have a smut mag and a working pink vibe! Sue me." Look, I have no problem admitting it. I'm a woman. I have needs and I'm cool with fulfilling them. Unlike most girls, I'm not going to sit tight and worry about propriety, although discretion would be a wiser choice now that I'm living under grandma's roof.

Kyane has her eyebrows up to her hairline.

"Cut me some slack. I deserve my orgasms. This whole vegan lifestyle is killing me. I can't tell you how many times I dreamt about bacon for breakfast. My fuck buddies don't have the guts to show their faces here. I haven't gone to a single party. I'm wasting away like an obol in the ocean."

"Hmm, poetic. Names?"

I raise a brow.

"Your fuck buddies. Obviously, you have more than one," She clarifies. "Who are they?"

I smile sweetly and twirl the spoon around my fingers. "I don't kiss and tell."

Kyane laughs. "Do your parents know?"

"Maybe."

I have pondered that. Mom probably does since she got Zag and I a box of condoms stuck with a cute handwritten message about playing it safe. Yet, I doubt she told my dad anything. The Host of the Dead wouldn't be so calm if he knew of his secondborn's activities; stepping out with the pill and spare underwear in her bag, often with the excuse of exploring her artistic talents.

Technically, I wasn't lying.

Technically, I was dangling the truth right in front of him. If he chose to see it.

Because I am, you know. On an adventure. Fucking their brains out. Figuring out what I'm good at. What I like. I give the best oral, they say. Lips, glossy pomegranate red. Tongue, slick with fizzy mint, making them quiver. The irony isn't lost on me. The fruit my mother craved during pregnancy, the nymph she killed to save me. Pomegranate and Mint. It stays on me while I'm on my knees. Licking until they forgot their own names. Sucking until their eyes rolled back. Satin smooth, hard dicks twitching, spilling within seconds…

Who knew I could suck like a pro?

"Is Triton one of them?"

I burst out laughing. "Look at you," Taking in Kyane's interest, I shake my head, smiling. "Yeah, he is. But how'd you figure that out?"

"I saw the way he was staring at you during the Winter Olympics. Like he wants to eat you."

Triton was eye fucking me at the event?

"Or rather he wants to claim you." She adds thoughtfully, as though she could read my mind.

Well, he's been convincing me to go out with him. Be exclusive. Do what normal couples do. Movie dates. Stroll by the beach. Dinner on his yacht. You know, the boring stuff. I'm not even considering it in the least. See, I don't want to be "claimed". I'm not a piece of fucking property. I'm not the spoils of war. Mom brought me up with many important life lessons but there's one that'll never leave me.

I'm always my own person first before I belong to another.

As equals, no less. No compromises.

But at eighteen, observing the big guns - couples who are known for their happy, enduring marriage - Nyx and Erebus, Hades and Persephone, Poseidon and Amphitrite, Aglaea and Hephaestus, Eros and Psyche…I realize I don't want what they have. I don't want to belong.

I don't want it to be about belonging. Him to me. I to him. It might work with them but not for me.

"I'll be sure to turn him down." I say.

"Was he your first?"

I almost flinched. Almost. Some people take a while to name their biggest regret. Mine rings out from a shotgun. Slashing down, cutting through air, an executioner's scythe. Fast. Ruthless. Unstoppable. The first time I gave myself to a god, trusting him with my body, parting for him shamelessly, arching as he thrust into me, breathing his sweat, moaning his name, wanting to give him everything. All of me. He devoured my flesh with quiet greed, letting the coarse rhythm of wet skin slapping against each other fill the unspoken ardor. He stared down at me as he pounded into me, marked me. He burned himself in my soul. And I let him do it. Once, twice, again and again. A brainless sixteen year old, I was.

Don't for once mistake my sexual liberty as my way of getting back at the world. I'm no pushover. I fuck whenever I like. I suck whomever I want. I let them touch me because I enjoy it. He has nothing to do with this. My score with him is different.

People say I look like my mom. I have her smile. Her eyes. Features of the one who bears a merciful heart. Deliverer of Souls. The Exacter of Justice. It ends there. They won't speak of the rest because they're fearful, acknowledging the dark side is seen as giving it power but looking away doesn't erase the truth now, does it?

Mother of the Erinyes. Avenger of the Dead.

I am my mother's daughter. I am my father's pride.

I am not your heroine.

Don't strain yourself trying to sympathize with me. I chose this. My emotions, my actions are crude, honest. Above all, they're mine.

"No," I summon a smile. "It was a long time ago. I don't remember much of it."

Handing me a glass of O.J., Kyane mats the quarts countertop with a coaster. "Really? Everyone remembers their first time."

I shrug, taking a sip and quiet down when I hear two people chattering from the hallway.

"- it's a sacred procession, for Rhea's sake, not a town picnic! Damning selfies! -"

"- the PR teams are on it, Megala Mater. The pictures will be taken down soon -"

"Triptolemus showing off again?" I sneer as the voices get louder.

Kyane snorts. "More so now that he has Instatheon." It's Instagram for the immortals.

"- fast, pray, cleanse. It's a spiritual journey! Oh, only I know how I suffered when that villain took my child from me! -"

"- yes, Kallisphyros Demeter. It was most regrettable -"

Kallisphyros. Trim-ankled. I don't know which I'm most disturbed by…the fact that Demophon has been noticing grandma's ankles or that the word is still in use.

"- I'm gratified that the Moirai put me in your path, Mater, to soothe your daughter's absence -"

Cringing, I turn to Kyane as the conversation gets nearer, feigning my astonishment with a gasp. "Demophonhasnopride."

Her shoulders shake in quiet laughter, clearly tickled by my haste.

"Morning, darling!" My grandma announces when she enters the kitchen, her nude pumps clicking their way towards me. "How are you?" She asks, planting a kiss on my head.

"Surviving."

She narrows her golden brown eyes at me. "Macaria, that's not very optimistic coming from a beautiful goddess like yourself who brightens these dark, cold days and overworked goddesses like me." She exclaims, waving her hand in the air.

And whose great idea was it to bring famine and blizzard into the world?

"At least you know you're overworked. And I was just kidding," I assure, then taking the opportunity to taunt the other person, "I'm doing better than your P.A. I'm sure he has some good years left before I have to reap his soul. Gently, of course." I wink, taking in the angry bruise around his left eye.

"Macaria." My grandmother warns.

It's no big secret. I don't like Demophon. Not so much because he was Demeter's baby substitute. I give zero fucks about that. I haven't told anyone this, but I punched him. And I should have socked the other side as well. Bastard tried to bug my phone. Whatever dirt he could find, he wanted to use them against me. Extortion? Blackmail? You really wanna go there? Hit me with your best, guppy.

I was raised by warriors.

Demophon clears his throat and pushes up his horn-rimmed glasses. He scores twenty on acuity, but Kyane figured that he must have read in a newbie's mag that donning a pair of fake executive glasses makes lesser competitors crap their pants. "Lady Macaria, in case you haven't heard, the Great Mother Demeter wants to complete my initiation into the realm of immortality since Queen Metaneira, my mortal mother, failed to understand Lady Demeter's noble intentions and halted her progress prematurely. Metaneira isn't the wisest of women, it is unfortunate."

Funny how he tosses his birth mother out like stale cigarettes.

I dart my eyes to a smirking Kyane who is arranging a bunch of camellias in a clear vase. The same bunch of camellias that stood as the centerpiece of the island five minutes ago.

"I'm sure I'll be a great addition to the family." He adds, tipping his nose in the air.

Pffttt. Get a load of this guy.

"Oh I don't know, Prince Demophon, eternity might start to bore you after some time. Watching the endless days pass you by, the cycle can be brutally… melancholic."

"Not while you're here to entertain, Princess," Demophon sends me a leer that goes unnoticed by Demeter. "What with your quick words and liberal deeds…"

There's a part of me that simply wants to tackle him to the floor and beat him to a pulp. "Right. You haven't seen me in my element." I utter regretfully. "I'm the anassa nekron, Demo. Haven't you heard? I assess the will of men. I'll bet three years before you desire the mercy of a razor."

Demeter falters for a moment before she stares down at me. "Macaria!"

"I'm sure I can manage." He jerks his chin in indignation. "I shall do my best to serve the noble Mother of Grains. I shall honor your mother, sweet Persephone, at Eleusis and adore her as a brother would his sister. Hopefully, she can find solace in my company while she purifies herself."

It takes every ounce of control in me not to howl in laughter. "Yeah, might wanna take it down a notch, Demo. This family is incestuous enough as it is."

"Macaria, that's enough!"

"The Fates would not be so crazy to think it, Lady Macaria," He narrows his focus at me, anger barely contained in his features and I know he's about to trip. "Fruits of such relationships are proving to be undignified."

I feel my grandmother's fingers stiffen on my shoulder. Oops. "Care to explain what you mean, Demophon?"

He blanches. I bite the inside corner of my lips to stop myself from smiling.

Oh men. How easily they fall...

The kitchen falls to a silence. Demeter's face turns more hostile than a hurricane while the ever-so-humble Prince Demophon looks like he's about to piss his pants. He drops to his knees. "M-M-M-Mater…y-y-you know I would n-never…I d-d-d-didn't mean it l-l-like that…"

My grandma stalks over to him and whispers something in a harsh, low tone which I couldn't catch. Demophon turns redder by the second so whatever she's saying it can't be good. After a couple of quick nods, Demophon leaves the kitchen.

My grandmother turns her heels to me. Slow enough to be intimidating. "And you, young lady," She curls her hands by her side and breathes in, visibly trying to control her temper. "Disrespectful! You are crude just like your father!"

I lift a shoulder. "You'd rather I took after Zeus?" I cock my head as Demeter's eyes widens in disbelieve. "I mean he got really close, didn't he? I've always wondered who slipped that molly into her drink…" If dad had been a second later, that pathetic fucker would have taken mom on the open field for the sky to witness.

"Enough!" Demeter looks as though she wants to slap me but instead she strides back and forth on the polished floor. "Why, oh why can't you be more like Zagreus? Look at your brother! So gentle and kind. And he thinks before he speaks!"

Zagreus fucking Khthonios.

Light of Rebirth. Firstborn of the Underworld. My older brother. A peacemaker who has Olympus eating out of his hand and praises pouring from the lips of mortals. Even Triton once told me he would marry Zag if they both played for the same team. Yeah, my brother is that guy; one who never trashes your playlist, always pays for your coffee and never takes advantage of a woman when she's drunk. He may be the spitting image of dad, but inside, he's 90% mom. The rest accredited to the fact that he's a player extraordinaire. In both women and ice hockey. I mean what else can you do when grandma gives you frozen lakes?

"You're not in the Underworld, Macaria! I will not allow such speech in my house! Such desecration!" Her eyes are burning with fury. "Understood?"

I purse my lips and turn away.

"Madness!" She screeches, her heels clicking more furiously as she walks out. "I told her he was no good! Couldn't even raise a daughter right! Almighty Fates know how the other one is doing!"

I stay seated in my chair and listen to her fading voice. Mel would probably find the humor in all this.

"You pushed it too far, Mac." Kyane sighs. "There wasn't a day your yaya didn't regret what almost happened to your mother."

"Mom was roofied," I look at Kyane straight in the eye. "Zeus would have raped her! She'd been missing for a whole hour and no one fucking noticed." Demeter deserves every second of that regret.

"Macaria, it wasn't Lady Demeter's fault…"

"It was Zeus', I get it! But it doesn't mean Demeter was any less guilty!" I say with too much force.

"Where's all this coming from, Macaria? What's happened to you?"

"Too much sun."

"All this anger that you're carrying…" Slim fingers rub over mine. "It'll eat you. You must learn to let go."

"Can we drop this conversation?"

I slip off my chair, to grab a clean bowl and cereal box. Same time, I hear Kyane open the fridge. I decant the cereal into my bowl and let her pour the chilled milk. I'm too angry to look at her.

"She loves you, Mac." Kyane says softly.

Munching on a spoonful of Cheerios, I shrug.

Whatever.

---

Element, Kendrick Lamar

I Stand Alone, Godsmack