13 • Cranes

“How do you know it’s done?”

“The more you make it, the more you understand the timing, the color changes. And the bubbles.”

“Bubbles?” Ganymede chirped, staring down at the egg frying in the round pan.

Hephaestus exhaled measuredly. The counter behind him was empty; nevertheless, he pulled a bowl from it and gave its viscous contents a stir. “Watch. Everything’s full of air.”

In a skillet, he poured a small amount of the batter. In moments, the edges and along the center engorged with bubbles. “What is that?”

“It’s a lot of things. Mostly it is a kind of bread. Soldiers make it to fill them up. Anyone who doesn’t mind losing their teeth covers it in syrup.”

“Why would they lose their teeth? Is it hard?”

Hephaestus’ scarred side glared harshly, but his unmarred half was patient. “Living in a cradle of golden cashmere. Human teeth rot, young one.”

Ganymede’s voice hollowed. “From bread?”

“No, from sugar.”

More confused but no longer horrified, he peered down at the medallion of bread cooking. “I don’t understand.”

Hephaestus gave the pan a masterful flick. The medallion plopped on its other side, revealing a supple, golden brown top. “Things happen on a scale too small for your eyes to see. Left in your mouth too long, the sugar eats your teeth as much as you eat it. Not that you’ll ever know it. Mix these together and knead them.”

Ganymede looked upon the counter, now dressed with a pile of flour, and dishes of what looked like water and salt. His eyes flicked around for a utensil, but Hephaestus’ rough voice ordered, “With your hands. Put the salt in the water, and then the water over the flour.”

Ganymede followed as he bid, however the god’s better judgment stepped in. He pushed a crater into the hillock of flour with gentle fingers. “Pour.”

The salted water was contained inside the flour, and Ganymede began to…push it around. “Is, uh, there a wrong way of doing this?”

“Not right now.”

He could not be sure what that meant, but he kept at it until a dusty shape moved between his hands. A rough yet careful hand touched his wrist, silently bidding him to stop. “You will exhaust your hands. There is rarely a physical thing that does not utilize more of the body.”

And then he pushed his whole weight over the bases of his palms, flattening the dough in one gesture. Then he folded, and pushed, folded and pushed. “Now you. The energy comes from back here. Focus here, and let your hands do the work.”

Fingertips tapped his spine, and Ganymede nodded. He had learned long ago how clenching his gut made ascending stairs easier. He did so now, feeling the muscles wrapping around him ebb and flow as he pushed and folded.

“Fast learner.”

Ganymede blossomed in a grin. Hephaestus looked tenfold uncomfortable. “Now the cakes. The dough must sit for a while.”

“Why?”

“Small reasons you can’t see.”

“You should make something with yeast so he will see,” came Athena’s voice. She handed Ganymede a glass of water, which he drained.

“What is yeast?”

“Pour,” Hephaestus ordered, handing him the batter.

Athena replied, “It’s a tiny organism that eats sugar, and belches air for bread to be fluffy and soft.”

Ganymede made a face but stayed intent on watching the bubbles rise in the batter. He peeked at Hephaestus when the surface was covered. The god merely gazed back. Ganymede used the cooking chopsticks to lift the edge for a peek.

The flip was clumsy and batter spread across the pan, but Dionysus distracted him by plucking the first cake and tearing it in half. Steam rose from its pale texture before he dipped it in a rich, amber syrup. He chewed while sighing, holding the dish of syrup out to Gany. “I love our little rocks in our sapphire sea, but the best food is everywhere else.”

Ganymede chewed, transfixed. The pancake and the dark flavor of the syrup were entirely new to him. “We don’t have this? Where is it from?”

“West. Far, far west. Then again, it’s relative.” He waved a piece of cake while he spoke. “Since we’re this far east, you could just keep going east and find it. Either way, you’ll have to cross a much larger ocean to reach a much larger continent. Did someone mention yeast? That’s my area.”

Ganymede frowned. “Bread?”

“Yeast is involved in making wine. At least, the human-made stuff. It’s not all finger twirling and hard thinking. I had to make it accessible.”

He laughed like that was a brilliant joke. Athena remained stoic. “Plate, Gany.”

He blinked at her, and then rushed to remove the cake from the pan. The other side was significantly darker, but Hephaestus raised no complaint as he rolled the dough into a thin sheet. “Come here.”

Ganymede stood by him as he let the dough fall into an overlapping coil. Hephaestus held up a rectangular knife. “I reckon you’ve never used one of these.”

“I know what it is.”

“So you know what side to avoid.” Taking one of Ganymede’s hands, he positioned the knife in his hand, as well as adjusting the other. “Keep this one in a fist, and well away from your other hand. Feel how I cut.”

Hand over his own, Ganymede observed how Hephaestus cut the sheet into noodles. “That measurement.”

On his own, Ganymede felt clumsy and foolish, unable to press the knife down in even strokes. The ends of the blade clunked against the wooden table at different intervals, but his eye for measurement proved good and consistent, and the noodles were ready for boiling. 

“Enough.”

Ganymede watched the god pull the noodles out of the boiling water with his hand, drop them into a manifested bowl of broth, mushrooms, and green pieces of which he was unfamiliar, and a soft boiled egg.

“Thank you—you’re not having any?” Ganymede realized.

Hephaestus paused on his way outside. “This isn’t my place.”

Ganymede watched him lope towards the trees surrounding the house before a mist crept over the forest floor and enveloped him. Ganymede glanced between Athena and Dionysus. She held the plate of cakes, gesturing while Dionysus continued to eat. “Easier to enjoy what he’s left behind for you.”

He followed them back into the house, where they rested on the floor at a low table to eat. “There isn’t anything we can do for him?”

“We must honor his right to do as he wishes.”

“The hermit came out of his mountain for you,” Dionysus remarked. “He’s reached his quota for the century.”

Athena adjusted, “He means that some people benefit from quality time more than outright gifts or actions done for them.”

Dionysus proceeded to assist Ganymede with the chopsticks. They were as clumsily held as everything else, but the food was delicious. Once finished, Athena inquired, “I think I can piece for myself why the sudden urge to learn crafts, but I want your answer.”

Ganymede paused, caught practicing picking up Dionysus’ fingers with the utensils. “Is it strange?”

“Not at all. Merely delayed. Severely delayed, much like your desire to read and write. However, you wanted those skills for yourself. Am I correct in assuming the circumstances are different this time?”

Dionysus chuckled with a nudge against his shoulder. “Reading is a gloriously selfish act, but you will never have need to cook for yourself. Or anyone, really. Which begs the question.”

Ganymede frowned. “I want to be able to do something for myself. And for the people I love.”

Athena absorbed this, and then leaned forward. “Did my father say something to you?”

“No!” he sputtered. “I just realized…”

Dionysus purred, “Mmm, I love pauses. What could take so much brain function that the mouth stops? You had a great deal to say after Hera spoke to you.”

“Hera spoke to you?” Athena’s eyes sharpened.

“It was fine!”

“Well,” Dionysus rolled his eyes.

“I was fine.”

“No you weren’t.”

“I’m fine now.”

“You’ve got a fire lit under your heels but you don’t know in what direction to move,” he reiterated. Ganymede could feel the color in his face coincide with his rising temperature. Dionysus’ chin rested on his fist. His voice softened. “You have every right to be afraid and angry. We’re not stopping you, we just want to understand.”

It was a while before Ganymede felt ready to respond. “It’s stupid.”

“I’ve found a great deal in this world to be stupid, but it can be resolved by sharing understanding,” Athena soothed.

He heaved a sigh and swallowed dryly. Dionysus moved a fresh cup of tea across the table to him. “I had a dream of a banquet, but nobody was eating. I thought…I thought of Hephaestus. I thought of you, Dion.”

The side of the god’s mouth lifted, warmth splashing his features while he blinked softly.

“But I couldn’t find you. As I was looking, I thought…Hephaestus can show he cares by cooking. Humans and gods sing for themselves, for each other. There are things…things that are done. That are known.”

It was some relief that the siblings did not peek at each other. They had eased into relaxed, receptive positions, listening to him. “I guess…I thought of Dion and felt happiness. I thought of Hephaestus and…didn’t. So much good food…just left there. I think, indirectly, I thought of Aphrodite. He can do so much, but she ignores him. I don’t understand how anyone would refuse such attention.”

They let another moment pass before Ganymede looked up. Dionysus spoke first. “It seems you already have your answer, lover. So much can be given but the answer may still be no.”

Athena seconded, “You are unique in that the only person with whom you’ve had romantic interest has reciprocated completely. It is not uncommon for relationships to be uneasy, otherwise Hera would have nothing to do. Yours is easy. It would not surprise me if she is…well, flabbergasted, to say the least.”

Ganymede had never thought of that. “She’s…the guardian of marriage. She said she does not punish Zeus’s lovers.”

Dionysus smirked. “Humans assume her actions are revenge for Zeus defiling their marriage bed. As if anything were that simple. The day marriage became synonymous with fidelity, was the day humans forgot everything that actually makes a marriage.”

Ganymede’s features flattened. “It isn’t?”

Dionysus shrugged. “It’s an agreement. A list of collaborative actions the pair brings to the arrangement. It is their choice whether or not genital fidelity is involved. For most, it is, of course, but I find that people have been willing to tolerate far worse, and yet keep the line drawn at bodily betrayal. Basically some people just shouldn’t marry because they haven’t a clue what they’re doing. In that regard, it’s a damn stroke of strategic genius that Hera captured Zeus. We each may disagree with her methods and logic, but she isn’t the dumbest of us.”

“That’s Poseidon,” his sister remarked into her tea.

Dionysus sang, “I’m surprised at you, Minnie! Poseidon bears a certain bookish genius even I have to praise. It’s common sense that he completely lacks.”

Athena briefly rolled her eyes before returning to the point. “Speaking of strategy, there are plenty of reasons for humans to pose the fault upon the woman, as well as focus on Zeus’s liability in fathering so many sons. We spoke of warring for the gods. So many cities claim to be founded from one of our half-siblings, and Zeus’s seed ought to grant them obvious victory. Paint the town red, indeed.”

Dionysus lifted a finger off his jaw. “That’s my phrase.”

“It’s a terrible phrase,” she grimaced.

“I’ll make it a good phrase,” he snapped and then returned, “It does spark the contemplation of what qualifies as a marriage, no? What does Hera protect? A ceremony? Or the union of commitment? The production of an heir—well that would be ironic. Perhaps the business transaction? Hades is the god of coin—much to our amusement and his chagrin—and he’s always been her more preferred sibling—apart from Hestia—so she would have a taste for that. However many cultures do not require the business negotiations or ceremony involved; they seek only the love and loyalty. In such a case, it rather goes against her duty to befall tragedy to his beloveds, doesn’t it?”

“I thought it was only her arbitrary point of view.”

Both of the gods stared at him and then burst into laughter. Athena held her hair off her face and Dionysus leaked tears of mirth before they were through. The latter heaved, “You’re smarter than we ever deserved.”

“Thank the stars,” Athena agreed.

“It’s not funny!” Ganymede exclaimed. “I’ve been terrified! Are you saying she—she’s fine with me?”

“If she wasn’t, she would have been rid of you long ago,” Dionysus murmured, drinking tea.

“But…but she doesn’t trust me. She’s uncomfortable whenever the gods discuss humans in front of me.”

Dionysus smirked. “Well there it is, isn’t it? She’s afraid of you, but not because you’re in her brother’s bed. Believe me, they’re better as siblings than spouses.”

Ganymede felt more perplexed than ever as he sent confused and worrisome glances between them. Then Athena stated quietly, “He does not know how the gods fear humanity.”

Dionysus’ mirth evaporated from his features, and that proved perhaps the most jarring of all. A somber god of revelry was…unnerving. Like a forest of birds collectively falling silent.

Then he smiled at Ganymede. “A story that does not involve you.”

Ganymede held his breath, certain he had not imagined the change. “How so?”

He smirked while pouring a fresh cup. “Did you forget I’m technically a demigod? Well. Now my mother is far from human, so I suppose I quite defy labels. Never mind. You did not exist yet when that all came about, so you need not bother yourself over it.” He finished with his cheerful sarcasm, “Which is a marvel. You’re old as stone but look freshly carved.”

“I am not old as stone, and Priam is older than me,” he remarked, and then felt as if he came to a physical halt. Ganymede was not sure what he meant by it, but he felt the spark of epiphany that comes from remembering something spontaneously.

Athena and Dionysus were staring at him. Ganymede inhaled, exasperated with feeling weighed down. “What? What now?”

Athena lifted her cup to her lips, but she had the lethargy of just wanting something to do. “You do remember the most curious things.”

“Have you been remembering recently, or the whole time?” Dionysus asked.

Ganymede frowned. “Remembering what?”

“Your humanity,” he all but whispered. Before Ganymede could understand, the god rose to his feet. “I have a delightful festival to plan, and it is in your very own city. I think I’ll have to out do myself.”

“Dion,” Apollo warned from beside Athena, as if he had been with them all the while.

“Tut tut tut,” his brother waved his hand dismissively. He began to whistle on his way through the house, his music lingering even after he was gone.

* * * * * * *

Zeus’s fingers massaged his scalp. Ganymede leaned and felt his spine pop; his muscles were molten and his joints loose in the steaming bath. Even as the heat began to encompass his chest and his cheeks tickled with sweat, the water began to cool.

“How did you know?”

“You cook as visibly as a peach does in the sun,” Zeus chuckled.

“I overheat easily,” he exhaled, his tone suggesting disappointment or apology.

“It is not an uncommon trait. How did you find the winter? I keep the winds away from here during the season, so the palace bakes in Helios’s warmth.”

“I wasn’t ready for how much clothing was needed against it.”

“Many humans have adapted to the climate of their home. The north is warm blooded against the snows; the middle is cool against the constant sunlight. But there is more than raiment to help them. Teas and spice warm the belly and put fire in the blood; fabric can be just as dependable for warmth as a means to cool the body.”

Ganymede’s silence induced Zeus to carefully crane his head back to see if his eyes were open. “Are you still with me?”

“I am, but I don’t know what you mean by north or middle. I’m told east and west but I don’t truly know the difference.”

Zeus’s arms slid around his waist so he could hold Ganymede’s hands, splaying the fingers and savoring the palm to palm contact. “I usually reserve such information…but humans are not ignorant of it anymore.”

Ganymede turned in his arms. “What information?”

“Wait here.”

He moved for Zeus to stand out of the bath. He padded naked to his rooms, leaving Ganymede to cross his arms over the floor and dazedly observe his return. Zeus smiled. “I’m flattered, but focus a little.”

Ganymede swallowed and peered at the sphere being offered to him. When he reached for it, the weight of it bobbed in his hands. Heavy sapphires and emeralds were held together by globs of gold, but no detail seemed careless. Zeus slithered back into the water and rested his chin on his forearm. “It is an artistic representation…but that is our home.”

Ganymede tore his gaze from it and frowned with doubt. “Huh?”

Zeus’s brows lifted innocently. “Imagine you’re the sun; Helios’s great eye staring so far away at us. We’re just here. These little gold pieces sticking out there. This is our sea. Troy is across the way, over here. That direction is east.”

“I thought Helios rode a chariot,” Ganymede uttered.

Zeus grinned. “I won’t confuse you. All you need to know, is how this is an incredibly small model of our dwelling. A fleck of soot could be on this, and it would still not represent your scale. It is that large.”

Ganymede was turning the sphere in his fingertips. He could have held it with one hand or rested it over the opening of a carafe. “We’re so small.”

“You are so special.” He adjusted it in Ganymede’s hands. “We were here today.”

Ganymede’s lips parted, his eyes contemplating the long island and how far away it sat from the cluster he knew. “Dion grew up way over there?”

“More like all over here,” Zeus said with a finger’s gesture around the whole continent between their sea and the eastern island. “Many of my children were born on one of our islands, but they all wander, as is their right to do.”

“Why here?” Ganymede uttered while the globe turned in his hands. “You have…everywhere.”

“We do,” he agreed, his voice solemn. “It’s not that we limit ourselves to this place. Much of it has to do with mere preference. Dion enjoys the east for its range of cuisine, spice, lush forests and thrashing storms. He may soon disappear for a few moons because the winds are bringing constant rains to his favorite continent. Apollo enjoys anywhere that defies its odds. The northern warriors’ songs, voices never frozen by ice or fear. The desert peoples’ dances; tireless movement despite the merciless sand and sun.”

“They like the people or the land?”

“Can they not love both? The land comes with people, and people attach themselves to their lands.”

“Why do you choose this place, then?”

Zeus’s eyes were soft as a thumb stroked their small, small corner on the globe. “Because there is a primitive feeling here. Perhaps only I feel it, but… Just the rocks, the sea, and sky. Blankets of green and flowers, of course, but…there’s something unchanging. Even deserts were once the bottoms of oceans, and will be again, but our place here is familiar to me. It is jagged, and soft.

“Though not the most beautiful, perhaps,” he finished with a lingering look at Ganymede, who felt his gaze.

“I think cities are beautiful,” he admitted quietly. “They’re messy and foul smelling, but…I like them.”

“You are not wrong to like them,” Zeus soothed. “Bustling hubs of human minds and physicality. I daresay I’ve kept you bored all this time.”

“I haven’t been bored. It hasn’t all been carrying and pouring.” He felt so many questions as he scrutinized the sapphires, emeralds, and golden pieces, but he blurted, “Dion said—”

Zeus waited, and then pushed, “Said?”

“I don’t want to trouble him.”

“He knows exactly what trouble he incites,” Zeus sighed.

“Actually it was Athena who said…”

“She definitely knows.”

Ganymede could not help but exhale a breathy giggle. “She said gods are afraid of humans.”

He felt himself relax as Zeus hummed an affirmative sound. “We are. Humans are brilliant, and when that brilliance is applied to destruction…well. Cities which took a thousand years to build return to the sands in an evening.”

Ganymede took his time absorbing this and trying to imagine Athens or Troy as an empty space…or their clumsy citizens wrecking such havoc as to leave buildings as husks. He could not. “But you can go anywhere in an instant. Do anything. Even in death, humans are ruled over by Hades, aren’t they?”

He let Zeus take the sphere from him, and watched it continue is revolutions in his large hands. “He does, but there is more to a god’s rule than ruling. I don’t involve you in my work, not because I fear your tampering or mischief, but because it is not merely difficult to explain. I worry how my work would affect you.”

“I’ve never wanted to be involved. I don’t even know what I would do,” Ganymede uttered. “In truth, I don’t fully know what you do. I know Athena does a lot of it, so I understand things from her side.”

Zeus’s mouth lifted on one side. It was a rare moment in which he resembled Dionysus. “You’ve already been more than a helpful influence in my life and work.”

Ganymede’s damp lashes lifted. “How?”

“You’ve given me a place to land.”