The Trials of Herakles, Part VII
“The bigger the herd, the bigger the man, I suppose.” I winked at Moxie as she laughed.
“The bigger the herd, the bigger the man, I suppose.” I winked at Moxie as she laughed.
Sybil tried to prove she was a good daughter, but she grew to hate Skiron for not accepting her, although he treated us all well. She decided she’d had enough of vying for his love and attention and said she was leaving to find her family. Her true family.
Lana gave me all the details she’d been given over the phone, most of which only made me more curious as to Thanatos’s whereabouts. As I listened, I got the feeling that I was about to head off on a journey that I might not return from.
I paused and watched the younger gods move to the edge of their seats and lean forward. My eyes caught Demeter’s, and she winked at me. I paused a little longer for dramatic effect.
I got up and took my time to make myself another tea, giving everyone a break to chat or stretch or absorb the story. I turned and looked around the room at the gathering of gods and goddesses and felt a sense of pride.
Everyone laughed. Why would a goddess take anything a mortal does seriously? “At one point, fairly early on, Alcaeus fashioned a net of sorts to try and catch the hind. It was only out of sheer dumb luck that one night, while he slept, the hind stumbled across the net and got trapped. Its cries woke Alcaeus.”
I haven’t mastered walking on wooden floors. There always seems to be that one squeaky board in every home intent on blowing my cover. I haphazardly step on it, causing a noise that might as well be an air horn in this quiet room.
“Unfortunately, the sight of him covered in the lion’s skin scared everyone and the stories of his heroics grew even grander, which caused him to get a bigger head and become more insufferable. And of course, every time Alcaeus did something amazing, Zeus wouldn’t shut his big mouth about it for years!”
“It was around this time that Zeus and I started going through a particularly good period. I don’t know if he was distracting me on purpose, but I wasn’t paying much attention to the mortal world. Not long after the snake incident, Alcaeus’s mother set him in the woods, apparently hoping to avoid my wrath. Had I known about it, I would have taken his life and been done with him.”