3 • Minerva

The pads of Ganymede’s fingers pressed circles into his own forehead and temples. He groaned, “There is no way that he is going to let me travel over the earth to a festival in your name.”

Dionysus’ mouth was full of ambrosia pasta stuffed with truffles. His words were indecipherable and caused Eros to cringe.

“Eugh, cover yourself. And he’s right, anything in your name is guaranteed to have too much merriment and debasement.”

“Sorry for inspiring a good time,” he retorted, shoveling more pasta into his mouth. The sun and moon had both risen and fallen since Dionysus first announced his scheme, and it only sounded more outlandish with each passage of the heavens. Ganymede was glad for the rush of heat down his spine, a breath of summons across his shoulder.

“Plant a seed in his head!” Dionysus called after him as he left to answer. “You’re the only one who can convince him!”

Ganymede shook his head and that notion away. The last time he had brought up the possibility of going to earth the king had declined it immediately.

His foot paused on the first marble step to Zeus’s rooms. He was not up there. Ganymede followed the dull tickle in his mind to the gardens. The lowest point of the palace, the gardens rested in a crater at the top of Mount Olympus and acted like a massive courtyard with the palace standing all around it. Ganymede tipped over one of the urns standing at the entrance to pour nectar into a tall goblet before he answered the summons. He found Zeus by one of the streams that filled with the rain and descended to the earth in the form of rivers and waterfalls and eventually flowed into the River Styx.

“My king,” he bowed behind him with the goblet held above his head. The vessel left his grasp and Ganymede stood to see him under the starlight. The shadows of the palace were heavy and thick, but where the stars and moon touched were comfortably illuminated. It helped that the god’s power dimly shined through his flesh.

“Have you been well today?”

“I have, my king.”

He heard Zeus turn to him before he inquired, “Is that all? Another boring day at the mercy of Dion?”

A smile teased at Ganymede’s lips. “No. He and Eros like to sing together…and they bicker just as much. I mostly just sit and watch, but it’s never boring.”

“Then I am pleased,” he said. Zeus drained the goblet where he stood, causing Ganymede’s eyes to widen. He reached for the goblet and turned to refill—

“No, stay with me.”

Ganymede watched as Zeus threw the goblet somewhere among the olive groves and grasped his hand to pull him through the arbor lattices that were so overgrown with fragrant vines that columns of marble women had been crafted to hold them up. Here shadow and light intermingled, making it more difficult to distinguish the reaching petals from a hand or a bench from discarded marble. Ganymede’s hand was drawn up to rest on Zeus’s palm while the king’s other hand absentmindedly traced over his fingers and metacarpals.

“Is there anything you want to ask of me?”

Ganymede’s stomach bobbed as he cast anxious eyes up to him. “No?”

The king gazed down at him as they continued under the arbor. “Are you sure?”

Ganymede’s eyelashes fluttered as he looked elsewhere. “I…I don’t understand what you want of me.” Had he been listening? Did he know Dionysus’ intentions? “I haven’t any right to want something.”

“You have every right, Gany,” he contradicted. “Asclepius and his daughters had to look over you while you healed. You have every right to know why.”

“Oh. Oh!” Ganymede blurted, causing Zeus’s steps to halt underneath a puzzled look. “I-I thought—I don’t know what I thought.”

“You’re only a good liar when it involves some truth,” Zeus chided mildly. “What were you expecting?”

“It’s not important.”

“Gany.”

“Really, it—”

“Gany.”

His mouth moved like a fish until his mind caught up and he reluctantly voiced, “It doesn’t need to concern me. Dionysus has just been telling us his plans for his City Dionysia.”

“He wants you to attend it,” Zeus guessed.

Ganymede sputtered. “How did…”

“Because he has never changed. Given a grape, he will take the whole tree and use the seeds to grow a vineyard. He likely wanted you to do the convincing portion of his scheme, but you already know my answer.”

“Yes, I do,” he answered slowly. He unconsciously pulled on his hand, wanting it back but Zeus’s loose hold was enough to keep it custody.

“You want to go?” the king wondered with some surprise.

Ganymede peeked up at him to gauge his mood and ventured, “Yes... From what I’ve heard…and seen of Dionysus’ reenactments…it seems like something enjoyable. Stories told on a stage with music and dancing…is it very different from what occurs here?”

“Entirely different,” Zeus declared. His voice was soft but it pulsed in the air, sending the leaves and flowers nearest to him a flutter. “The stories told are not for the faint hearted. Only a day is devoted to comedies and they are the bawdiest sort. Everything else is for tragedies and epic tales that hardly end any better, hours spent in the efforts of creating anguish in one’s heart.”

“Catharsis,” Ganymede nodded, taking Zeus unaware. “Dionysus told me, and I’ve read of it in Athena’s books. It sounds like medicine for something even Asclepius cannot touch; evoking sadness and everything negative and purging it from one’s heart. Even though the festival is in Dionysus’ name, surely it is meant to honor all of you. If you did not approve, then wouldn’t you have ended it? Dionysus made it sound as if this has been happening annually for centuries.”

This was one of the few times Zeus stood as silent as the marble around them. Ganymede had grown to equally enjoy and fear that look of perplexity on his face. A god pinned against his will, but an animal caged made for an unpredictable problem…or so he had read.

“Yes,” he relinquished, “but it has been more for their sake than ours. Although Dion enjoys mingling within his own celebrations, the endeavors taken by the humans actually amount to nothing. We do not interfere, because it does provide a source of amusement, but even the fictitious can be real when one believes enough in it, and for many that is enough.”

“What do you mean?” Ganymede asked as they reached a break in the arbor where a large, weaved seat shaped like an open clam rested in a nook of shrubbery and vines. Zeus drew him into it and sat with him pulled close beside him, reclining on the king’s chest. Ganymede could feel the warmth of his skin seeping through their fabrics into his own flesh as he explained.

“These festivals humans provide for us include animal sacrifices. They used to slay their own kind but I put a stop to it immediately. What use have we for cold blood and the burnt meat they put on their pyres? By some irony of the Fates, many Olympians do cast favor onto civilizations because of these deeds, but only out of amusement. Not everyone is like Dion, Gany. Most see them as pet ants that are easily pleased and just as easily eliminated at their whims.”

Ganymede’s weight sank against him, and he felt Zeus’s head turn and press into his hair. “It’s all right. It is in part from having a human mother that Dion has this sentimentality, but I will not surrender all of the credit.”

Ganymede hummed a sound like a laugh, his body curling to draw his knees up so they could fall more fully on Zeus’s lap. A hand fell over them, large enough to grip both knees if he chose. “Athena’s mother was human too, wasn’t she?”

“No, she was a titan,” he corrected softly. “Styx knows her daughter gave me a headache of titanic proportions.”

“How’d you swallow a titan?” he giggled.

Zeus jostled him congenially as he reiterated, “Well she was not a full-blooded titan, but my cousin from a higher generation nonetheless. You may be able to sit on me in this form, but in others, I am more than capable.”

“Hm,” Ganymede hummed again, nestling once more against his side. “She gets it from you then, her kindness.”

Zeus was silent, then, and Ganymede lifted up to find not bewilderment, but an expression he had never seen before, certainly not on the king’s face. Shame.

“No…her kindness is her own, and more likely caused by an aversion to my behavior.”

“You’re kind to me,” Ganymede refuted. Zeus’s brows perked up along with a dubious curve to his mouth.

“That is an argument I’d rather not have tonight, but thank you.”

Ganymede was not sure where an argument would stem from, but Zeus’s hand on his head pulled him back onto his chest. He petted the fringe of hair off of his forehead, letting the tresses fall back in place before raking them back again. The strokes were more intimate than what might have been expected: a strong, undefeatable hand caressing an area on which he himself had such a traumatic scar. Ganymede began to feel his eyelids grow heavy, and soon the rhythm of touch became waves of sleep ebbing over him.

Somewhere between sleeping and awake, he heard Zeus say, “You’re not upset with me? For not going to earth?”

“No…” he mumbled, unbeknownst to himself. His voice sounded foreign despite the familiarity of the words, “I’m sad.”

He awoke in his bed and with a very different touch upon him. Athena leaned over him, smiling. Sunlight glinting off her wheat gold hair made Ganymede’s face pucker in a squinty grimace that made the goddess laugh. He helplessly swat at her hand on his nose, seeking air from every orifice he had. Her harmonious chortle flittered over him as she released his nose. “I’ve missed you. Have you grown tired of reading?”

“No…” he groaned, stretching and moving the flesh of his face to rid it of sleep.

“Break your fast with me,” she said, not as an order but she was already standing and striding from the room. Groggy but aware, he rushed after her and felt his stomach rumble when nothing short of a feast welcomed them to their usual place in the library; only now the sandpit was covered by a large carpet. With each step a new scent filled his lungs: fresh basil, sun-dried tomatoes, poached eggs with spicy peppers, tea that was fragrant and gold, strips of succulent meat with pungent cheeses, and freshly baked bread.

“You needn’t wait on formality for me,” she prompted, and he landed somewhere between the massive bowl of fresh citrus fruit, tea, and meat. He was reaching across the expanse of platters for the bread when she chortled, “One would think my father doesn’t feed you.”

“I ate with Eros and Dionysus yesterday,” he said over the bread he was breaking. He lifted the ladle out of the tea and drained it before finishing, “But only once. I forgot the rest.”

Athena sat with her elbow poised on her knee, fingertips pressed to her amused lips. “I hadn’t imagined three meals to be easily forgettable but we are amid an exciting time.”

He froze when her fingers brushed his cheek, pulling an over long, rogue piece of hair out of the corner of his mouth. His vacant albeit bewildered expression met her pleased one, and his transformed like an eggshell under a sea gull’s beak. His eyes squinted above his grin so he could barely see her, and then she playfully tugged on his earlobe. “Eat.”

He did, as he imagined the kings on earth did at their own feasts. The tea was rich and woke him up as well as washed down the savory meat roasted in its own grease. The egg yolks wept when he broke them, a succulent sauce within itself that stuck to his lips. There were also stuffed apples that he saw once his hunger had calmed somewhat; goat cheese filling sweetened by honey, spices, and other fruits.

When his stomach could not take anymore, Ganymede lay back, all but comatose. Athena frugally nibbled on berries, bathing in the sun while her owl slumbered underneath her discarded helm. “I’ve heard Semele is fond of you.”

“Mmhm…” he hummed, focusing on breathing around his full stomach. “I’m looking forward to her birthday. I’ve never seen Dionysus so quiet.”

His eyes popped open. “He probably shouldn’t know I said that.”

“My lips are sealed,” she laughed. “I told you of your way with beasts, didn’t I?”

The sand rustled under the carpet and Ganymede’s shrugging shoulders. “She’s fine. It’s the tiger that makes me anxious.”

“Don’t bother with that cat,” she scoffed. “With Semele’s affections, you have an ally, and I hardly fear for you with or without her.”

His head fell to the side to see her. “What about wolves?”

She faced him. “Why wolves?”

“His majesty said wolves are dangerous and territorial. I’ve been curious.”

“Are you sure he wasn’t speaking of himself?” she retorted, popping a berry into her mouth.

Ganymede guffawed. “He was, at first, but I can’t tell when he is being truthful or diverting our conversations.”

She lowered onto her stomach beside him, thoroughly intrigued. “The mighty Zeus seen through by a human. I would have much preferred you for a younger brother than a drunkard and violent maniakos.”

Ganymede’s smile faltered. “What about Apollo?”

“He and I are too similar. We cannot share conversation without reaching an impasse.”

His mirth returned. “That is great praise. I never thought it would be tiring to have too many similarities.”

She waved a blackberry in the air while she spoke. “We are both artists and warriors. He writes his poems and I my histories. He reaches for a lute or lyre and I my sculpting chisels. He does have a superiority complex I do not care for. I think it is because his sister was born first. But we were discussing wolves. You mustn’t compare wild wolves to Ares’ war mongrels.”

“How are they different?” Ganymede asked eagerly.

“Wolves in their natural habitat are extraordinarily logical,” she said. “They can run for hours, tracking for days for their kills. Alpha pack leaders are just as easily male or female, at the top of a hierarchy that ensures the pack’s survival. They mate for life, ingrained with a loyalty unknown to most creatures.”

“Oh,” Ganymede muttered, earning her curiosity. “He was relating wolves to Olympians.”

For a second in time, Athena was statuesque, and then she proceeded to laugh harder and longer than Ganymede had ever seen. Her owl poked its head out of the helm at her commotion; even the naiads lifted their heads from the crowded lily pads. When her laughter subsided, her residual giggles uttered, “There aren’t many occasions for me to retract my words, but he was certainly not speaking of himself. Only the heavens and underworld know how many have tasted his loins…literally and figuratively.”

Ganymede grimaced, not having wanted that sort of response. Athena noticed. “This isn’t new information, Gany.”

“I know,” he responded tensely. “I’m not…shy or unknowledgeable. Dionysus certainly isn’t…Eros likes more privacy but only slightly.”

Athena smiled but tipped her head to the side as she considered that. “I suppose it does make an unsightly image in regards to a father figure.”

“He’s not my father,” he stated.

“Brother, then,” she reiterated without missing a beat. “That’s how I’ve come to think of him. The most annoying of the lot most days. I used to humor the thought of castrating him but the last time that was done, Ouranos's dangly bits made Aphrodite spring from the sea, so I won’t risk another accident.”

Ganymede stared at her with wide eyes, simply grateful the goddess in question was not present to hear. Athena’s verbal thoughts came full circle, thankfully, and he found himself under the silver spotlight of her gaze. “Are you disappointed in his false comparison?”

His mouth opened but then he thought better and shook his head, giving himself time to think. “I haven’t any reason to be disappointed. Meeting Semele has just gotten me thinking; other than Hera and Demeter, she’s the only previous lover of his that I’ve met.”

She set the bowl for fruit aside and settled more comfortably next to him. “For good reason. It is a trial enough trying to keep the peace with a king who is a slave to his loins, let alone keeping recipients of his affections in the vicinity. It is a cold, macabre way of thinking about it, but Hera’s wrath is not to be trifled with and we need only one of his heads raised to attention. Brains rule a kingdom, not a cock.”

“Do you miss her?” Ganymede surprised. “Your mother.”

A long moment passed before she answered. “No, but that is because she and I had our time together. Short though it was, we were conscious of each other while I was in her womb and she bestowed all of her knowledge to me. But I have stolen enough of your time. You must attend your duties. Any longer with me and you will fall asleep.”

The change in topic was abrupt but he obediently began to gather the last of the food and took them to Athena’s quarters which rested in the back of the library. He rolled the carpet and brushed the sand pit into order, and then went to clean the empty dishes.

“Sister mine,” drawled Dionysus the moment Ganymede had left.

Athena approached and kissed the air beside his cheek. “So you’re the one causing all of the buzzing in that sweet boy’s mind.”

He laughed while leaning his shoulder against a shelf. “On the contrary, I don’t think I am the one to blame, but I am glad to whoever started it. Isn’t it rude to peer inside his head?”

“I don’t snoop,” she returned, walking past him. He followed with an easy gait. “But I feel the sway of his mind, and it is certainly on a path of evolution. The trail of words he leaves behind him…there is a great deal going on inside his head that he is not voicing to us. Go on, then, ask me.”

“I should find it insulting that you think I want something from you,” Dionysus teased.

“That is what makes you special, Dion,” she purred. “You find compliment in insults. Should I congratulate you on Gany’s sexual education?”

“Not at all,” he smiled. “True knowledge comes from application and practice, and not even I am foolish enough to invite him toward that. I will not blush at providing the observation, though. Whether it is with the nymphs or in the shadows of his sleep, he will seek the needs his body has awoken to. Better to move forward with a thorough knowledge, am I wrong?”

“You’re appealing to my methods, brother,” she almost chided.

The smile on his face only widened. “Says the woman who has taken the time to teach him how to read. Why ever would you do that? Where is the knowledge of letters actually useful?”

The siblings’ gazes locked together as they came to a stop on their stroll. “We are working together without acknowledging it,” he declared softly, for her ears alone.

“What should come if we do acknowledge it?” she inquired.

“Success,” he answered. “You care about him, the same as I do, and it absolutely nauseates you to see our father use him like a pet. He does this because it is the only mindset keeping him from fucking the poor boy's brains out, but Gany is as multifaceted as any other mortal, but stronger in his own way. You and I know that. Eros knows it.”

Athena’s eye roll interrupted him. “Do not tell me he is involved. You know I agree with Apollo’s sentiments toward Eros.”

“Leave our brother and cousin to their quarrel,” Dionysus followed slightly behind her so his voice floated over her shoulder like a second conscience. “After all, even gods make mistakes.”

She whirled around, brandishing a long dagger of Hephaestus’ making. “You will watch your words when you share my company, Dion. A drunkard needs only a stomach, not his tongue.”

He lethargically pushed the blade point aside. “I am a humble farmer, not a drunkard. I choose to drink when I like, not when I can do nothing else. Consider dear Pallas a lesson on how to not fuck up with Gany.”

Sharp silver irises met deep brown ones that were almost the color of merlot in certain shadows. In the corner of her eye, the striped tail flick of a tiger disappeared behind another bookshelf.

“I want him at my festival,” Dionysus revealed. “I want him dancing and I want him to hear his own people sing.”

“But they are not his people,” she combatted. “He is not Greek.”

“He doesn’t know that,” Dionysus reminded. “Trojans and Greeks foolishly worship us all the same yet think of themselves as different. That does not matter to me. You have just over four weeks to either turn our father’s eyes away, or to convince him to let Gany come.”

“You believe you are doing Ganymede a kindness by introducing him to humanity,” Athena voiced.

“And you don’t?” Dionysus challenged. “You tease him with mortal knowledge that he cannot use?”

“He asked me for the knowledge, and any how, I anticipated to have years to change Zeus’s mind,” she reiterated. “Four mortal weeks is nothing. It is not enough time.”

“As I said,” Dionysus finished as his tiger came to rub against his leg. “Either convince him, or turn his gaze aside.”

“And have us all killed the moment he can’t find Gany?” she countered with a lifted brow.

Dionysus only grinned over his shoulder. “You’re clever, Minnie, I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

Minnie. Minerva. Her name in a different civilization and his favorite pet name for her. And she hated him for it.

Athena knew that if anyone was going to kill Dionysus, it was going to be her. That brat of a god had gotten her involved too deeply, and now she was doomed to go down with his ship if he crashed it. As he and his annoying cat sauntered out of sight she could see how every angle of his side would fail. He was cunning enough to get her involved but he was ruthless in how he knew what it would take to make his plan successful, and he had put the task on her.

Her owl’s talons clenched the bunched fabric at her shoulder when it landed. Nibbling on her ear, the tickle worked to clear her thoughts, cleaning the slate for proper planning ahead…