Ganymede and Other Romantic Short Stories from Greek Mythology Read online

  GANYMEDE

  AND OTHER ROMANTIC SHORT STORIES

  FROM GREEK MYTHOLOGY

  by

  T.S. Cleveland

  Copyright © 2019 Victoria Skye Cleveland

  Smashwords Edition

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the materials or artwork herein is prohibited. This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this eBook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this eBook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author. This book is available in print at many online retailers.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Disclaimer

  These retellings herein are merely one interpretation, and though I’ve taken care to remain as true to the players as possible, there were gaps that had to be filled and plots that had to be changed in order to give characters the happy endings they deserved. If I have gone off the rails (and I really, really have), those rails were vacated with love.

  That said, I would not recount these versions to a scholar of Greek Mythology. Actually, you should. It would probably be funny.

  OTHER BOOKS BY T.S. CLEVELAND

  The Sun Guardian: Book One of the Vanguards of Viridor

  The King’s Whisper: Book Two of the Vanguards of Viridor

  The Guildmaster: Book Three of the Vanguards of Viridor

  The Olympians

  Zeus – king of the gods, god of the sky, weather, kingship

  Hera – queen of the gods, goddess of marriage and family

  Poseidon – god of the sea, earthquakes, floods, and horses

  Athena – goddess of wisdom, war, weaving and other crafts

  Apollo – god of prophecy, music, song, poetry, and archery

  Ares – god of war, battle lust, and courage

  Aphrodite – goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation

  Dionysus – god of wine, pleasure, festivity

  Hephaestus – god of fire, craftsmen, sculpture, metalworking

  Artemis – goddess of hunting, the wilderness, and wild animals, protectress of baby animals

  Demeter – goddess of agriculture and harvests

  Hermes – god of travelers, trade, thievery, cunning, language, and diplomacy

  Honorable Mentions

  Eros – god of love

  Hebe – goddess of youth

  Hades – king of the Underworld and god of the dead

  Core/Persephone – goddess of spring

  Thetis – queen of the Nereids, sea nymph and mother of Achilles

  King Peleus – Myrmidon king who wed Thetis and fathered Achilles

  King Tros – Ganymede’s father, first king of Troy

  Eris – goddess of discord

  Callisto – companion of Artemis

  Perseus – demi-god who defeated Medusa

  For Laura

  Table of Contents

  Ganymede

  Persephone

  Callisto

  Hermes

  Citations

  About the Author

  Ganymede

  “Pour forth heaven’s wine, Idaean Ganymede,

  And let it fill the Daedal cups like fire.”

  -Percy Shelley

  In a land of kings, it was not special, or even unusual, to be a prince. In regards to status, Ganymede was like many boys: a young prince with a kingly father, in a world of many others with similar titles. In a Phrygian city of the Troad, a broad stretch of land closed in by the Aegean Sea, Ganymede was a young prince of Troy, but he was not the only one. He had two princely brothers, sons to Tros the King, for whom the city was named.

  It might have been more spectacular that Ganymede’s grandfather, on his mother’s side, was a river god, but in these times, not even a deity in the bloodline could be called unique. Scamander’s river flowed near Troy, and Ganymede played in the banks often with his friends, enjoying the cool water on his skin and wondering if all rivers felt so nice, when one was not kin to them.

  Even as a son of a king, Ganymede spent much of his time tending to his father’s livestock. He especially enjoyed looking after the sheep. He liked to pet their wooly heads and sit with them on warm afternoons, while his accompanying tutors tried to teach him history and make him memorize verse. As a clever pupil, Ganymede insisted he could luxuriate with sheep and learn his letters at the same time, and so despite the repeated attempts from his tutors to study in a more obvious environment, Ganymede usually got his way. This most likely had nothing to do with the boy’s persuasive skills and everything to do with the way his eyes shone with anticipation of exploring the mountainside. Because although he was not extraordinary in his role as a prince, he was extraordinary in a different way.

  It was said by all who encountered him that Ganymede was the most beautiful creature in the mortal realm. He’d heard it so long, the compliments slipped past him now like water sluicing down his skin after splashing in the Scamander. Still, he supposed it must be true. His hair was gold silk that fell in soft curls around his face. His skin was smooth and kissed by the sun. A man’s hair barely grew on his body, as he was not yet a man, but a boy of sixteen. He had eyes like his mother’s, and he supposed like his grandfather’s, river-green and large, with thick golden lashes. His cheeks held a firm roundness, with an apple blush that complemented the red of his lips.

  Beautiful he was, but it was not how he viewed himself. Ganymede did not stare into the river’s reflection and admire the cut of his jaw or the dignified prominence of his collarbones or the soft slope of his nose. In his own pretty eyes he saw only a sprightful youth, keen on playing knucklebones with his friends and taking up his shepherd’s crook to spend the afternoon with the sheep atop Mount Ida, while his tutors explained the native flowers or the architecture of his father’s palace. His own beauty did not interest him as it seemed to interest everyone around him. On one startling occasion, he even caught his favorite tutor, Alexius, staring at him with a foggy dreaminess in his eyes. It was not because Ganymede had just successfully repeated back to him the royal succession of Sparta, but because his chiton had slipped precariously over his shoulder, revealing a delicate pink nipple.

  And though Alexius remained his favorite tutor, Ganymede took particular care after that incident to make sure his chiton was pinned well into place before their lessons. Today, he wore the pin his mother had given him on his last birthday, a bronzed olive leaf with its stem encrusted with pearls from the Aegean. The summer air stirred his curls, lifting them from his forehead as he peered over the mountainside with sun-squinted eyes. Past a sweet-faced sheep, Alexius was droning on about the Olympic Games whilst Ganymede’s best friend Nicolas made funny faces. Scattered between the sheep were his father’s hounds; one stood at Ganymede’s side, licking the sweat from his palm. Above him, there soared a bird in the sky, a black shadow against cerulean blue, the only marring of the cloudless day.

  “Ganymede, are you listening to me?” asked Alexius, though his question was partly obscured by the ill-timed baa of a sheep or five.

  Ganymede looked away
from the shape spiraling above their heads, blinking away the brightness and bestowing his attention to his tutor. “Yes, Alexius,” he said, rummaging up the past words spoken in order to properly answer his elder. “The Games would truly be a sight to see. I’d like to watch the wrestling.”

  “A violent sport,” Alexius said with a disapproving eyebrow. “Is it blood you wish to see? Such ugliness is not meant for eyes like yours.” He meant lovely eyes.

  “If there is blood, there is blood, but that’s not why I wish to see it,” replied Ganymede, exchanging soft smiles with Nicolas, who was still pulling faces at Alexius’ back. “I have a theory that particular game requires rather more elegance than we’re led to believe. And I like the idea of two men bared down to nothing but their fists in a competition of strength and finesse.”

  “Elegance? Finesse?” Alexius shook his head, disbelieving his pupil could harbor such juvenile thoughts. “Men die at this sport. Is that what you wish to witness, Ganymede? Death?”

  Ganymede found the question silly, for he had already seen death in many iterations. His father’s household sacrificed regularly to the gods. Only a few days ago, a pig had been slaughtered before Ganymede’s eyes. They’d stuck it on a spit and spent the day roasting it, the thick, succulent aroma a feast for Zeus. He had seen his father sentence thieves to death, as well. He’d stolen glances of the stable groom after his head had been kicked in by his mother’s new steed. He had seen death aplenty for a boy of sixteen. It was life he had not seen enough of.

  The shadow above tried to snare his attention again, but he looked determinedly at Alexius instead. “You brought up the Games,” he reminded sharply. “I merely answered which one I would be happiest to watch.”

  “I know the real reason why you want to watch the wrestling,” Nicolas said once he’d rounded the sheep and come close enough to murmur in Ganymede’s ear.

  A thrill of embarrassment stained his cheeks pink, and Ganymede shoved his friend away, his hand rubbing over the tickle his breath had left on his ear. “Hush, Nicolas,” he laughed, the pleasantness of the sound enough to make Alexius forget anything unseemly he might have overheard. “Tell me, then, please, which of the Games you would deem the best match for my eyes.”

  Alexius might have answered promptly, but it was trounced beneath the sudden cacophony of bleats. In an instant, the calm mountainside turned into a frenzy of baying hounds and scandalized sheep, their bodies knocking shoulders, their tails whipping. Ganymede had to clutch his shepherding crook with both hands to steady himself as panicked sheep circled him, pushing and pulling him this way and that.

  Nicolas had no crook, and when one of the hounds jumped up, he fell down, disappearing beneath the sea of wool with a shout. Alexius reached Ganymede’s side with admirable dedication moments later, but he wasn’t looking at Ganymede; his eyes were cast to the heavens.

  High above—though close enough to give every living creature on Mount Ida a racing heart—the bird’s shadow loomed.

  “That is no bird,” Alexius warned.

  Rising nearby, quashed between a sheep and a hound, Nicolas pointed a finger at the sky. “It is!” he yelled. “An eagle!”

  Ganymede’s eyes widened as he craned back his head and studied the flying beast, which, at closer inspection, turned out to indeed be an eagle. As it sailed ever closer, the blackness of its shadow was replaced with feathers of gold and talons as large as the curved tail of a hound, the sharp tips glinting in the sunlight more malevolently than fur ever could. It was greater a bird than any Ganymede had ever seen, and not just for its size, which was daunting. It seemed to glow brighter as it zoomed nearer still, and merely looking at it was enough to know it for what it was—not mortal and not of this earth.

  There was only a single bird as mighty as the one now careening towards Ganymede, and it was not a bird at all. Nor was it a man. The impossibility of it all rendered Ganymede’s muscles so tight he couldn’t move, even as his tutor tried his best to yank him to the ground under the cover of stampeding sheep.

  When those sharp talons found their landing mark around Ganymede—one around his bicep and one around his waist—his first thought was that they didn’t hurt at all. For vicious things that looked like they could shred his skin to ribbons, they didn’t even prick as they closed with delicate precision around Ganymede and lifted.

  Alexius, bless his baffled heart, clung to his pupil’s ankles until his feet lifted from the ground. Ganymede screamed for him, watched in horror as he dropped to the grass, his body landing safely but becoming very small very quickly as the eagle that was not an eagle surged higher and higher into the air. He began to struggle, his friends turning to dots on the mountainside, the howls of his hounds muted by the deafening flap of the eagle’s wings.

  Still, the talons did not cut him, even as he thrashed and wailed, and he did both with a thoroughness that was foolish; if he earned his freedom now, he would plummet to his death from such a height. The heavy summer air became cooler as he was carried further upwards, further and further. His chiton had long ago shifted in his struggle, and every time he thrashed his leg, soft feathers slid against his bare thigh. Somewhere far below, on the grassy mountain, his shepherd’s crook lay abandoned, along with his left sandal, which was missing from his foot. His naked arch floundered helplessly against the cloudless sky, until it was not only cloudy, but filled with nothing but the fluffy white things.

  They were enshrouded by a veil of clouds, Ganymede and the eagle. He felt swallowed. He could make out nothing for a few moments but the beating of wings and his own panting breaths, see nothing but endless white vapor, thick and curling and swirling, and then—

  They burst through the clouds and the sun shone so brightly, Ganymede closed his eyes, though he might have done so anyway, just from the frightfulness of it all. All he saw before he snapped shut his lids was a mountain’s peak blanketed with lush forest. And then he saw nothing, and continued to see nothing until he felt solid, cool surface beneath his knees. The gently gripping talons released him just as gently, and Ganymede’s hands joined his knees on what felt like marble. When he succumbed to his curiosity and finally opened his eyes, he learned it was marble. The eagle had landed him on a floor of marble as white as the clouds and inlaid with sparks of gold that resembled tiny rivulets of fire flowing through it in swirls and whorls.

  With a gasp, he looked up and found the eagle gone. Wherever he was, he was alone. He took a few minutes to collect himself, shaking out his terror-stricken limbs enough to stand and then walk, one step and then two, his eyes sweeping over this impossible, miraculous place. Beyond white and gold columns that stretched higher and broader than his father’s back home, the lush greens he’d glimpsed before were only a few paces away. He had been taken to an acropolis surrounded by a garden so sweet smelling and colorful, Ganymede’s eyes teared to see it.

  The breeze whispered through his hair, over his skin, beneath his rumpled chiton. On Ida, with the sheep, it had been the height of summer, uncomfortable enough to make his forehead damp with sweat. But here, the climate could only be described as perfect. He felt neither chilled nor hot, only confused. Perhaps he’d gotten too hot on Ida and was suffering from sun sickness, a malady Alexius had told him about, and one his brother Ilus had suffered mildly last summer. Could the eagle have been a delusion of sickness? Could he really be hurtling towards the Styx, soon to wake from this strange dream and find himself dead instead of standing in a golden hall?

  He walked, one foot bare and one in a grass-green sandal, towards the garden, leaving the marble and stepping onto a path paved with sparkling gold. It twisted through the garden, which he could now see was a courtyard, and he moved to follow it. His eyes scanned the sky for the eagle, fearing it might swoop down and fly him off somewhere less pleasant, but the bird had vanished. He checked his arm for talon scratches, but his skin was as smooth and untarnished as the marble floor.

  The longer he w
ound his way down the golden path, the better he could make out the garden beyond. He ran, past the scarlet rose bushes and through twisting vines of grapes, until he cleared the courtyard and reached the mountain’s edge. The sky above was a bronze dome, and further down the mountain’s peak, the clouds hung heavy, obscuring the land below from view. The breath sputtered from Ganymede’s lungs as his mind worked fervently for an explanation. He could no longer locate the sun in the sky, but it was bright as the brightest morning. Below was a white sea of cloud, shifting and floating but always masking the land below. Almost as if it didn’t exist.

  “Careful,” a voice said.

  Ganymede stumbled back from the edge and turned, his eyes trailing up a sleek torso until he focused on the mouth, nose, eyes, face of a spectacular man. Power radiated from his golden skin like heat from a fire. Above cleverly curved lips were cleverly bright eyes. Amused and curious eyebrows arched high on his forehead, touched by a sweep of honey hair.

  It was only because Ganymede could hardly stand to look at such a face that his eyes darted down and spotted the peculiar sandals strapped to the man’s feet. They were golden and shimmering like everything else in this strange place, but at each heel was a set of tiny, fluttering wings.

  He fell to his knees in awe and couldn’t keep his eyes away from that face any longer, not now he knew who it belonged to. He was powerless, he was mad, he was dreaming.

  “Hermes,” Ganymede whispered. He couldn’t think of what he’d done to possibly earn the attention of a god, but after saying the name, feeling it on his tongue and hearing it aloud, he knew he was right. He was in the presence of Hermes, and he was staring like he didn’t know better. He lowered his head at once, pressing his palms to the grass, which was soft as down feathers.