The First Book of the Olympnomachi: The Birth of Melinoë Part Deux

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It was in such an age that the goddess Melinoë was born. At first her parents were filled with love for her, with the goddess born in the halls of Erebus, with the child leaving for the realm of men with her mother, when the spring called. Unhappy to be torn from her father, the first-born of Erebus complained oft and bitterly of this, so that many suspect this to be whence her hatred for the living realm and Zeus began.

While her mother loved mortals, plants and animals and departed through all lands to sing, to elevate the spirits of all, avoiding as she did so her mother Demeter. Who she had never made peace with, since the old goddess had condemned, her marriage and attempted to sway her away, with the beauty of Adonis. Melinoë for her own part was a more morose spirit, though she did attempt to join her mother, on her many voyages.

Worried, though not greatly so over this granddaughter of his, Zeus feared the blood that flowed in Melinoë’s blood. For in her veins, ran his own and Hades’s blood, so that he forbade any god from ever marrying her, an edict that angered her mother. She believed that, her daughter was destined to experience and ought to experience all the joys, a woman should enjoy. Complaining bitterly, she forbade her daughter from ever leaving her side.

Never a particularly obedient soul, Melinoë strove in her first few millennia to abide by her mother, and even her father’s wishes. However, she in time grew restless so that, one day her grandmother who had never seen her before, and who had been told of her, by Zeus found her lying by the sea, with the Nereid Makrýmós (long-river), singing to her. Keen for revenge, and full of spite as she believed, that Hades had robbed her of her daughter and her innocence, Demeter took up the form of a crone, to approach the innocent lass.

At first, Melinoë received her with a great deal of bemusement, ere long she had reason to regret her kindness, when the woman she mistook, for a harmless crone whispered to her. “Oh delight of Hades, apple of his dark-eyes, why do you listen to dark songs, such as that of Fall of Narratsya? Ye, who hast all the riches of Erebus, all the love of Kora and might of the king of the dark, ought to be more full of joy.”

Her words evoked wonder in the goddess, who informed her, “I am miserable because, I love not this world that my mother loves so. And wish only, to return to Erebus, for where I am naught but a lady here, I am princess there.”

Hearing her bitter words angered Demeter, who cloaked her fury behind careful and artful words, ones that sparked madness and tragedy in their wake. Melinoë was told more, so that she grew bitter with the queen of the summer claiming that, her father had no desire to keep his daughter. Told a variation of the prophecy, she became increasingly suspicious of her mother, she burst then into tears. Seeing her pain, a part of Demeter softened, so that she advised her to, seek out her grandmother, or grandfather.

Melinoë considered this counsel, only to challenge her mother when she returned to her by the river, with the queen of Erebus. Angered by this, Persephone discerned that it was her own mother who had sought out, her daughter. Keen to confront her, she however chose to prematurely send Melinoë to Hades. Who received his daughter in a burst of surprise, with his warmth softening his daughter’s suspicions for a time, at least until Zeus called her hither to Olympos.

By this time, Zeus had grown might in his tyranny, he was also vain and had taken Loki, the mad-god of trickery and evil, into his counsel. Loki had persuaded him that, Olympos necessitated Melinoë’s presence, with the storm-god keen to examine the possible rival to his claim to the kingship.

At first Hades refused, with the invitation repeated this time on the advice of Loki, it proposed that rather than head to Midgard, with her mother, Melinoë might head up to Olympos. Annoyed, he refused at once again. Melinoë for her part, objected to this, and when her father held steady against, her abuses, she schemed to sneak off from her mother.

Doing so during the summer festival of the city of Ceresia, where at the time every year there were week-long celebrations, dancing, singing and feasting by the people of the city in honour of Demeter and her daughter, Persephone. Melinoë’s mother was always in attendance, more to appease her mother and out of genuine love for the people. Appearing often to them, as either a middle-aged mother or traveling merchant, or a crone in recent times, to avoid recognition by her own mother; as she was still angry with the older goddess, who perplexed by her daughter’s actions came every year to attempt to find her.

Since early girlhood, Melinoë was always by her mother’s side if reluctantly so, for she had never much loved the festival of her grandmother. Especially not since the old goddess had visited her, with the impatient young goddess now chaffing under her own mother’s constant watch. Demeter during this particular festival succeeded in recognising her child, for the first time in quite some time, despite not being familiar with her daughter’s newfound idea of disguising herself in the flesh of an old crone.

This she did by reason of recognising her granddaughter as being of her own line, with but a single glance. This glance and the attempt to upbraid and seize a-hold of the daughter, who had long repudiated her, at first she attempted to evade her but whence this proved futile, she revealed herself if only, to call upon her, her full magical might. The distracted Persephone fought back against, Demeter for a time so that Melinoë fled then having revealed her divinity with a blink of her eyes to her grandmother, in the hopes of just this opportunity that revealed itself to her.

With her daughter missing, Persephone panicked and after she had fled from Demeter, she searched and searched and searched, for the daughter she had loved and attempted to shield with every bit of her soul from her malicious kin. In time, she was forced to turn to her kinswoman Selene the moon-charioteer for assistance.

A goodly goddess, Selene attempted to help her in her great search for Melinoë, but the younger goddess slipped about through the darkness of the moon, as a ghost might. At first she besought the light of the north, and once there she espied the glories of Asgard and was amazed. For she had never before beheld such wonders, such splendour or such magnificent men and women as the Æsir and Asynjor, who populated the halls of the north, with the goddess being of a contrary nature to her parents. Where Hades, cared nothing for splendour and loved only his family, envied Poseidon his realm yet sought not to cause division and pain, and where Persephone loved all so good was she. Both of them every bit as just and fair in mind and spirit, as Oðinn, Freyja and their children, Melinoë had none of this goodness in her spirit. Having long desired for Olympos, and the strength of the denizens that lived there, since her grandmother put this shadow into her heart, she thus now began to dream jealous dreams of the Asgardians.

This was the start for Melinoë of her terrible war, to lay claim to the kingship of Olympos, for she wandered the earth for a time before she sought out her uncle Poseidon. Familiar with him, and with how he was a mere shadow of his younger brother, she learnt much from him. Notably, of how he and Zeus stole the kingship of the gods from Hades, via their game of lots, with the sea-god thinking drunkenly at the time that he boasted of this accomplishment that in the morn’ he would enjoy her pleasures.

What Poseidon did not expect was the hatred it instilled in her heart, a hatred for Zeus that only grew with each passing day. For wherein latter days, her younger sister and brother, Macaria and Orcus were to seek to unseat Zeus, and grew to detest him. It was the hatred of the just who despise evil, in all its forms, Melinoë’s hate derived from envy of his power and station in life. It was this emotion that made her propose when her uncle came to her the next night, to have her that he pondered an unexpected alliance; one with the Titans.

“What hath thou been given but the refuse, the scum from the boots of thy lesser, o uncle? Thou art mightier than Zeus, thrice the man and thrice as kingly and yet thou art at his mercy always! Why keep the post of vassal, when thou might be better served by seeking expansion, wouldst that not be the most kingly thin to do given thy better claim by right of merit and birth than that of my father or uncle?” She said to him, in an impassioned voice, though the idea might in previous centuries have seemed utterly repulsive to him. In recent days, since Athene was given a senior position in the halls of Olympos and at Zeus’s court, envy had begun to win out over Poseidon’s feeble heart. His own bitterness towards the mockery Zeus oft-heaped upon him, and the fear all felt for his other brother Hades that far outweighed that for him, had left the middle son of Kronos dissatisfied.

Still when she proposed Kronos as a possible ally, to awaken him in order to topple Zeus he felt such fear that he at once rejected his niece’s terrible scheme. Chasing her from his realm, he despite himself began to at once ponder the possibility of siding with the Titans. Lustful for power, he struggled to squash his hunger, one that egged him in time to rebel against Zeus, whilst at the same time warring upon the rebels, against Olympos.

As to the goddess in question, she sought out her other uncle to request of him that she be made a proper Olympian. Pleased to have his niece/granddaughter join him, atop Mt-Olympos as this was where he believed all gods to belong, especially those who rejected Hades. Who for his own part, felt such horror at the news that his daughter had established herself upon Olympos that, he at once decreed that she was to be restored to Erebus.

Hades and Persephone might well have dreaded their daughter joining the Olympians; far more if they had known that Melinoë had linked herself by friendship with Zeus’s most troublesome daughter Até. The goddess of trickery, guilty of often joining Loki or Susanowo in their many tricks and petty acts of cruelty against all those around her, with this friendship causing consternation in even the king of the gods, who sought to warn his niece to be wary of the other princess. A princess who had in days of yore, caused the death of the Dwarven Emperor Throrain VII out of simple malice, with the Dwarf in question having come to believe himself mad after she had whispered continuously into his ear and throughout the principal hall of his throne so that only he could hear her voice. Whispering dark things to him, she had driven a previously just and good monarch insane, out of simple boredom with the Dwarf overseeing a reign of tyranny over the course of a century before he was put down by members of his own family who feared for their own safety.

This act had needless to say garnered for Até, considerable disapproval from her family and other Pantheons, who had had a special love for the mortal realm. Or in the case of some, simply annoyed them as this was no way for a dignified goddess and princess of Olympos to behave not that their disapproval meant much to Eris’s daughter, with her later consorting with demons furthering the divide between her and other gods. Her friendship with Loki, served only to heighten the desire to see themselves rid of her, with Melinoë’s bond with her and acts of insipid cruelty after she had linked herself to her, serving only to worry more of the gods.

“Thy daughter and niece are rapidly becoming the most monstrous, of all the children e’er spawned by Olympos.” Hera warned one day, after observing her eldest brother’s daughter torment Hepheastus by drawing his gaze to one, then ‘inadvertently’ knocking his cane down. As he had a lame leg this caused him great pains until he grew hot with anger, and the two along with Athene giggled escaped, with this being the only time that the last goddess joined them in a ‘prank’. As she had no great love for Hephaestus and bore a special hatred for him, and was only prepared to join the two terrible goddesses in causing him harm, for this reason.