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Summary
When the Captain bowed it was by law alone. It was simply a to do, a reverence between Gods and men and Jaheira of Tethyr: the old druid in between. She could see the hard-cut cleverness in the sailor's eyes the moment she stood and shook the salt from her hair. She meant no deference. Tacit and cunning, this Minthara only knelt so she might slice at an enemy’s heel.
So as she bowed, Jaheira plucked herbs from the hearth. The flowers felt like velvet in her palms and fell like snow into her wine.
Because it had not been so long since she played these games of Gods and men.
Jaheira and Minthara, on the island on Tethyr. A loose Odyssey-inspired tale with a sapphic twist.
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Bookmark Notes:
It was fall when she took flight.
Elysium was somehow too loud and too safe at the same time. Where ambrosia and everburnt sun should calm her, it only reminded Jaheira that she did not belong. Perhaps it was fear that if she truly put down roots she would wither entirely. Perhaps it was the pesky tug of her mortal blood– the whispers of age in her skin that caused the nymphs to gasp and recoil to their groves as if she bore a curse. But when the ever-chittering forest of Jaheira’s mind began to whisper fly, fly– well. Call it an old witch’s intuition or simply call her a mad old woman. But a lifetime of pricking up her ears had served her fine enough.
She had served the Gods well, had bled for Greece twice over and died in its sands, but could not rest upon her laurels in Elysium as the other heroes could. Oh, how she yearned for the imperfections that lay at the foot of their mountain. For the gasp of cold seawater as it lapped at the spot beneath her breast. For dewberries, either too tart from the last frosts of spring or too fat on summer sun. Meadowgrass beneath her feet in the mornings and tanned furs by the fireplace at night. Toothaches soothed by mint leaves. Scrapes that ran red. Old lovers long lost to the Styx.
Mortal life, as silly as it were.
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Bookmark Notes:
Only a madwoman would choose to live out her life in feathers and furs over the fields of Elysium. But Jaheira knew the wilds would cradle her well. Ichor may run in her veins now, but even Olympus could not deny her blood belonged to the bear, the bird and bee.
One day she’d return wrapped in those same pelts to those same children at her feet and whispers from the nymphs. “Do I frighten you, little ones?” She’d ask, having known the ways of the world once more. Then they’d titter like little bluebirds and perhaps she’d feel more at home resting in their perfect fields.
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Bookmark Notes:
Not a man at all. Some wind-whipped force of storms had stepped foot on her beach. Jaheira watched from the keyhole of her cottage as the Captain looked at her island like she could wrest the peaks from their mountains and pin them into submission. Such mortality in her. One who spit at the thought of death.
One like herself, once.