kajones_writing: (Richard with sword)

Stepping into the Donor House is a very strange experience. I know it as a hotel, but here it’s something very different, and I’m not entirely sure what to expect, even though I have written about both the place and people who live here before. Today I’m here to meet Alice, although she has told me that it’s likely I’ll end up meeting several more vampires and donors before I leave, because they’re all fascinated by me. We talked before I came, so she could remind me that I needed something white, which is a colour I don’t wear a lot of. Following their rules is important to me and I bought a white ribbon which is now tied around my wrist.

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Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.

kajones_writing: (Richard with sword)

“That’s the problem, isn’t it? It’s so easy to view a hame as one thing or another, especially in the case of the war, but there would have been Fasachis who were against it in the same way there were those who joined the war effort. As far as I’m concerned we should base our decisions on what someone is like, not what their hame is or their phyle.”

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Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.

kajones_writing: (Default)

There’s a knock on the bedroom door and I call ‘Come in,’ because I have some idea of who it might be. When I turn in my desk chair I’m unsurprised to find Joel standing there, looking a little unsure of himself, and I beckon him forward.

“Hi,” he says as he takes a couple of steps closer. “I know you’ve been writing some stories about Taithmarin recently and I wanted to explain about the door.”

I nod. “I had a feeling you might turn up soon.”

“Well, the door is the hardest thing to explain to any new arrivals, especially as the way it works is different for each race.” Joel shakes his head, looking almost amused. “For humans it steals away from Earth the magic of the door literally wipes their existence. It’s as though they were never born.”

“How?”

“I wish I knew.” Joel gives me a look that always makes me think of anyone who has to deal with fae magic – it’s a sort of disbelieving, annoyed, sad expression. “The magic of the door is one thing I doubt we’re ever going to be able to understand because we have no way of pinning it down to examine it. We thought the books the fae had left behind might have given us some idea, but they’ve been useless.”

“Okay…” I never knew the fae had left books behind, but it does make sense. They fled Taithmarin, knowing the world didn’t want them there, and they would have taken a lot of stuff with them on their first journey. “How do you know about the door wiping the existence of the new arrivals?”

Joel sighs. “There have been a couple of people who found a way back to Earth. According to them they found a door and because we don’t know how our door works it could easily have been it, or the world, showing us why we wouldn’t want to return now that it’s given us a place on Taithmarin. If you ask them I’m sure they’d be happy to tell their stories in more detail, but what they found when they returned to Earth was that no one knew them. When they went searching for records of their birth there weren’t any.”

“That’s…” I search for something to say. I knew the magic of Taithmarin was the strongest of any of the worlds, but I had no idea it would be strong enough to do what Joel’s telling me it does. “Was there any sign that the magic didn’t work on some people or that there were other Taithmarians on Earth?”

“The Internet is a wonderful thing. During their time on Earth they searched for Taithmarin, thinking they’d find nothing, but instead they found a group of humans who had once lived on Taithmarin attempting to create a new life. They’d set up a website purely as advertising, so that anyone else who returned could find a place to live, and it was created by someone who hadn’t forgotten the sister who had been taken by Taithmarin. She’s someone else you might want to have a chat with.”

“Some of my readers might find what you’re telling me hard to believe.”

“To begin with I found it hard to believe. When my guide told me that no one on Earth would remember who I was I thought it was just a way for them to stop me from worrying about the people I’d never be able to see again. It made sense for them to want me to focus on building a new life rather than focusing on the one I’d left behind. Reading about what had happened when someone had been able to return home… it seemed at first like it was another way of keeping me focused on Taithmarin rather then Earth. And then I met her.” Joel shakes his head. “Returning had really affected her. She was happy to talk to me about everything she’d seen and what it was like for those who did manage to get home. I just hope that none of my family remember who I was, because I’m much happier knowing that as far as they’re concerned I never existed.”

“Really?”

“At least I know they aren’t out looking for me.”

“True.” I think about how my disappearance might affect my family. Would I prefer it if I’d never existed? How would that even work? There are people all over the world that I’ve had contact with and I can’t work out how even magic would be able to completely remove me from this planet.

“I know,” Joel says, making me jump. “It’s one of those things that I try not to think about too much, because it does seem impossible.”

“How did you know what I was thinking about?”

“You had the same look on your face that every new arrival gets at some point, as they try to work things out in their head.” He smiles. “We don’t know how the magic works and we probably never will. If you want to understand it then maybe you could talk to the fae.”

I shake my head without even thinking about it. “The fae have no idea how they did anything.”

“Surely…”

“Joel, the fae have very little understanding of their own magic. They use it because they have it and never really think about what they’re doing.” I sigh. “It’s a pain when I’m trying to work out why certain things happen. My only real explanation for anything strange is that magic evolves. What I need to do is talk to Athare or Taithmarin.”

“Talk to a world?”

“Stranger things have happened.”

Joel looks at me. “I can’t argue with that. I live in a town with magical labradors.”

“You’re lucky.”

“How?”

“I’d love to meet the Nox Gadael. And the Alati Felis.”

“I’ll let them know. You never know who might knock on your door next.”

Unable to stop myself I smile. “I already have that problem.”

Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.

kajones_writing: (Richard with sword)

There’s a knock on the bedroom door and I call ‘Come in,’ because I have some idea of who it might be. When I turn in my desk chair I’m unsurprised to find Joel standing there, looking a little unsure of himself, and I beckon him forward.

“Hi,” he says as he takes a couple of steps closer. “I know you’ve been writing some stories about Taithmarin recently and I wanted to explain about the door.”

I nod. “I had a feeling you might turn up soon.”

“Well, the door is the hardest thing to explain to any new arrivals, especially as the way it works is different for each race.” Joel shakes his head, looking almost amused. “For humans it steals away from Earth the magic of the door literally wipes their existence. It’s as though they were never born.”

“How?”

“I wish I knew.” Joel gives me a look that always makes me think of anyone who has to deal with fae magic – it’s a sort of disbelieving, annoyed, sad expression. “The magic of the door is one thing I doubt we’re ever going to be able to understand because we have no way of pinning it down to examine it. We thought the books the fae had left behind might have given us some idea, but they’ve been useless.”

“Okay…” I never knew the fae had left books behind, but it does make sense. They fled Taithmarin, knowing the world didn’t want them there, and they would have taken a lot of stuff with them on their first journey. “How do you know about the door wiping the existence of the new arrivals?”

Joel sighs. “There have been a couple of people who found a way back to Earth. According to them they found a door and because we don’t know how our door works it could easily have been it, or the world, showing us why we wouldn’t want to return now that it’s given us a place on Taithmarin. If you ask them I’m sure they’d be happy to tell their stories in more detail, but what they found when they returned to Earth was that no one knew them. When they went searching for records of their birth there weren’t any.”

“That’s…” I search for something to say. I knew the magic of Taithmarin was the strongest of any of the worlds, but I had no idea it would be strong enough to do what Joel’s telling me it does. “Was there any sign that the magic didn’t work on some people or that there were other Taithmarians on Earth?”

“The Internet is a wonderful thing. During their time on Earth they searched for Taithmarin, thinking they’d find nothing, but instead they found a group of humans who had once lived on Taithmarin attempting to create a new life. They’d set up a website purely as advertising, so that anyone else who returned could find a place to live, and it was created by someone who hadn’t forgotten the sister who had been taken by Taithmarin. She’s someone else you might want to have a chat with.”

“Some of my readers might find what you’re telling me hard to believe.”

“To begin with I found it hard to believe. When my guide told me that no one on Earth would remember who I was I thought it was just a way for them to stop me from worrying about the people I’d never be able to see again. It made sense for them to want me to focus on building a new life rather than focusing on the one I’d left behind. Reading about what had happened when someone had been able to return home… it seemed at first like it was another way of keeping me focused on Taithmarin rather then Earth. And then I met her.” Joel shakes his head. “Returning had really affected her. She was happy to talk to me about everything she’d seen and what it was like for those who did manage to get home. I just hope that none of my family remember who I was, because I’m much happier knowing that as far as they’re concerned I never existed.”

“Really?”

“At least I know they aren’t out looking for me.”

“True.” I think about how my disappearance might affect my family. Would I prefer it if I’d never existed? How would that even work? There are people all over the world that I’ve had contact with and I can’t work out how even magic would be able to completely remove me from this planet.

“I know,” Joel says, making me jump. “It’s one of those things that I try not to think about too much, because it does seem impossible.”

“How did you know what I was thinking about?”

“You had the same look on your face that every new arrival gets at some point, as they try to work things out in their head.” He smiles. “We don’t know how the magic works and we probably never will. If you want to understand it then maybe you could talk to the fae.”

I shake my head without even thinking about it. “The fae have no idea how they did anything.”

“Surely…”

“Joel, the fae have very little understanding of their own magic. They use it because they have it and never really think about what they’re doing.” I sigh. “It’s a pain when I’m trying to work out why certain things happen. My only real explanation for anything strange is that magic evolves. What I need to do is talk to Athare or Taithmarin.”

“Talk to a world?”

“Stranger things have happened.”

Joel looks at me. “I can’t argue with that. I live in a town with magical labradors.”

“You’re lucky.”

“How?”

“I’d love to meet the Nox Gadael. And the Alati Felis.”

“I’ll let them know. You never know who might knock on your door next.”

Unable to stop myself I smile. “I already have that problem.”

Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.

kajones_writing: (Default)

There’s a knock on the door. Richard has asked to hold this conversation on Earth, rather than in the afterlife, because he thinks it would be esaier here. I get why he thinks that. Personally I’m not sure if I’m ready to go wandering around the afterlife either, especially as the map is still fuzzy.That’s something I want to ask him about. With a lot of the worlds I write in I seem to get told what I need to know when I need to know it, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the afterlife is the same.

“Come in,” I call, turning in my desk chair to smile at him.

Richard enters the room, his smile a little more tentative, and it’s obvious to me that he’s unsure of his welcome. He is Death after all. Without even really thinking about it I stand, walk over to the door, and wrap my arms around him.

“That’s from both Elizabeth and me.”

For a few seconds Richard is still. He’s taller than me, which isn’t unusual. When he finally relaxes I can feel it and after another few seconds he wraps his arms around me, sighing as he does so, his breath ruffling my hair slightly.

“Elizabeth is a reader of the stories you write?”

I nod. “It’s thanks to her that I’m in contact with you at all. During my first prompt session she left me a prompt to do with Death and that led to me writing about your first meeting with Caitlyn.”

Richard steps back. This time his smile is much more secure and I’m glad to see that. “Yes, I remember that day. She wasn’t scared of me either.”

“You’re a psychopomp, Richard. Guiding spirits to the afterlife is your job. Being scared of you, even though you keep saying you personify death, seems a little silly really.”

“Even though you’re scared of death.”

I bite my lip. “I’m a control freak. Of course I’m scared of it right now. I can’t control death and, even though I have more contact with it than normal people, the afterlife feels tenuous.”

“That will change in time. The longer you spend writing stories about is the stronger your connection with the afterlife will be. I can’t say your need to control things will change though.” Richard reaches out and gently touches my shoulder. “I know it hasn’t been easy. I want to say you’ve got through the worst of it, but I don’t know what your future will bring. Sam might, if you want me to ask him.”

I shake my head. “I think I’m happier not knowing.”

“Don’t you have a connection with Persephone too?”

“I’m not asking her either. Even if I haven’t dealt with all the bad yet I don’t want to know what comes next.”

“Are you sure?” Richard runs a hand through his hair. “Then again I think I would have been the same.”

“Anyway…”

His attention is caught by something on my desk. “What’s that?” he asks.

I turn. “What’s what?”

“The little black machine.”

“It’s my netbook. I use it to write on and connect to the Internet.”

Richard nods. “What’s the Internet?”

How do I explain the Internet, I wonder, and how did this turn into Richard asking all the questions?

“It’s a way of connecting with the rest of the world,” I say finally, going for the simplest explanation.

“How do you use it?”

Shaking my head I turn once again to look at Richard. “Do you want me to show you?”

He nods and I guide him over to my desk. It’s not a large desk and James is using it for his laptop, so it’s cluttered with notebooks, my spare pair of glasses, my MP3 player and a load of other random stuff. I motion for him to sit on my desk chair as I use the touchpad to wiggle the mouse and wake the screen up.

“The window I have up here, which is shown in the blue lines, is what’s called Firefox. It’s my preferred browser. Within the window is everything you need to use the Internet. At the bottom I have my weather forecast bar; at the top is firstly the menu bar, then the address bar, then my groups bar, and finally the tab bar. The menu bar allows you to do a number of things within the browser that we can go into another day. The address bar is where you type in the address of places you want to go. The groups bar is something I added myself, which allows me to have a work group and a play group. The tab bar shows you which website you’re on and what other websites you have connected to.”

Richard looks at me. “So basically the two bits I need if I want to start browsing are the address bar at the top and the tabs bar.”

“Yes, that’s about it.”

“What website are you connected to at the moment?”

“My website. Once I have this conversation posted I’ll load up some other sites.” I smile. “This was supposed to be me asking you questions, especially some I’ve had from Elizabeth ever since I had your character spotlight, but instead it’s turned into me explaining to you how to use the Internet.”

“There will be other times.” Richard looks at me. “Would you mind if I played with the Internet sometime?”

“Of course I wouldn’t mind.” I narrow my eyes. “Does that mean I’m likely to see Samael here too?”

“Yes, but he’s much better with all this technology stuff than I am. He already knows how to use the Internet.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“He did offer to teach me, but I didn’t have a reason to until now.” Richard smiles. “Now I have people reading about me I feel like I should be connecting with at least some of them.”

“I don’t have a huge readership.”

“That doesn’t matter, Kayleigh. We can build on that with the stories you write and hopefully I can help.”

“How do you plan on helping?”

“Sam mentioned this thing called Twitter to me.” I do my best to keep my sigh to myself, because I think I know what’s coming next. “I thought I might create an account myself, although I’d need help with the Tweeting part.”

“Give me a couple of days,” I reply, “and then we can create you an account.”

“Then I’ll answer all your questions.” Richard pats my hand. “Thank you for being so patient with me.”

“You’re welcome.”

Richard stands and for the first time I see his sword. “It stays hidden when I don’t need it, but I have a couple of jobs to do tonight.” He smiles at me one last time and surprises me with a kiss on the cheek. “I promise I’ll come back soon.”

Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.

kajones_writing: (Richard with sword)

There’s a knock on the door. Richard has asked to hold this conversation on Earth, rather than in the afterlife, because he thinks it would be esaier here. I get why he thinks that. Personally I’m not sure if I’m ready to go wandering around the afterlife either, especially as the map is still fuzzy.That’s something I want to ask him about. With a lot of the worlds I write in I seem to get told what I need to know when I need to know it, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the afterlife is the same.

“Come in,” I call, turning in my desk chair to smile at him.

Richard enters the room, his smile a little more tentative, and it’s obvious to me that he’s unsure of his welcome. He is Death after all. Without even really thinking about it I stand, walk over to the door, and wrap my arms around him.

“That’s from both Elizabeth and me.”

For a few seconds Richard is still. He’s taller than me, which isn’t unusual. When he finally relaxes I can feel it and after another few seconds he wraps his arms around me, sighing as he does so, his breath ruffling my hair slightly.

“Elizabeth is a reader of the stories you write?”

I nod. “It’s thanks to her that I’m in contact with you at all. During my first prompt session she left me a prompt to do with Death and that led to me writing about your first meeting with Caitlyn.”

Richard steps back. This time his smile is much more secure and I’m glad to see that. “Yes, I remember that day. She wasn’t scared of me either.”

“You’re a psychopomp, Richard. Guiding spirits to the afterlife is your job. Being scared of you, even though you keep saying you personify death, seems a little silly really.”

“Even though you’re scared of death.”

I bite my lip. “I’m a control freak. Of course I’m scared of it right now. I can’t control death and, even though I have more contact with it than normal people, the afterlife feels tenuous.”

“That will change in time. The longer you spend writing stories about is the stronger your connection with the afterlife will be. I can’t say your need to control things will change though.” Richard reaches out and gently touches my shoulder. “I know it hasn’t been easy. I want to say you’ve got through the worst of it, but I don’t know what your future will bring. Sam might, if you want me to ask him.”

I shake my head. “I think I’m happier not knowing.”

“Don’t you have a connection with Persephone too?”

“I’m not asking her either. Even if I haven’t dealt with all the bad yet I don’t want to know what comes next.”

“Are you sure?” Richard runs a hand through his hair. “Then again I think I would have been the same.”

“Anyway…”

His attention is caught by something on my desk. “What’s that?” he asks.

I turn. “What’s what?”

“The little black machine.”

“It’s my netbook. I use it to write on and connect to the Internet.”

Richard nods. “What’s the Internet?”

How do I explain the Internet, I wonder, and how did this turn into Richard asking all the questions?

“It’s a way of connecting with the rest of the world,” I say finally, going for the simplest explanation.

“How do you use it?”

Shaking my head I turn once again to look at Richard. “Do you want me to show you?”

He nods and I guide him over to my desk. It’s not a large desk and James is using it for his laptop, so it’s cluttered with notebooks, my spare pair of glasses, my MP3 player and a load of other random stuff. I motion for him to sit on my desk chair as I use the touchpad to wiggle the mouse and wake the screen up.

“The window I have up here, which is shown in the blue lines, is what’s called Firefox. It’s my preferred browser. Within the window is everything you need to use the Internet. At the bottom I have my weather forecast bar; at the top is firstly the menu bar, then the address bar, then my groups bar, and finally the tab bar. The menu bar allows you to do a number of things within the browser that we can go into another day. The address bar is where you type in the address of places you want to go. The groups bar is something I added myself, which allows me to have a work group and a play group. The tab bar shows you which website you’re on and what other websites you have connected to.”

Richard looks at me. “So basically the two bits I need if I want to start browsing are the address bar at the top and the tabs bar.”

“Yes, that’s about it.”

“What website are you connected to at the moment?”

“My website. Once I have this conversation posted I’ll load up some other sites.” I smile. “This was supposed to be me asking you questions, especially some I’ve had from Elizabeth ever since I had your character spotlight, but instead it’s turned into me explaining to you how to use the Internet.”

“There will be other times.” Richard looks at me. “Would you mind if I played with the Internet sometime?”

“Of course I wouldn’t mind.” I narrow my eyes. “Does that mean I’m likely to see Samael here too?”

“Yes, but he’s much better with all this technology stuff than I am. He already knows how to use the Internet.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“He did offer to teach me, but I didn’t have a reason to until now.” Richard smiles. “Now I have people reading about me I feel like I should be connecting with at least some of them.”

“I don’t have a huge readership.”

“That doesn’t matter, Kayleigh. We can build on that with the stories you write and hopefully I can help.”

“How do you plan on helping?”

“Sam mentioned this thing called Twitter to me.” I do my best to keep my sigh to myself, because I think I know what’s coming next. “I thought I might create an account myself, although I’d need help with the Tweeting part.”

“Give me a couple of days,” I reply, “and then we can create you an account.”

“Then I’ll answer all your questions.” Richard pats my hand. “Thank you for being so patient with me.”

“You’re welcome.”

Richard stands and for the first time I see his sword. “It stays hidden when I don’t need it, but I have a couple of jobs to do tonight.” He smiles at me one last time and surprises me with a kiss on the cheek. “I promise I’ll come back soon.”

Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.

kajones_writing: (Default)

“Come in,” Persephone says, holding the door to her study open. “Normally I prefer to meet at the clearing, it’s quieter there, but I have some work I need to get done.” She smiles at me. “I hope you don’t mind if I work while we talk.”

I smile at her. “It’s not a problem.”

Trying not to show how nervous I feel I step into the office and can’t stop myself from looking around. Opposite the door is a large desk, with a pile of papers at one end, with two bookcases either side of it. For a moment I study book titles, before stepping further into the room. To my left is a large window and patio door, leading out into the large garden; to my right there are pictures on the wall of Persephone and her family.

“Make yourself at home.” Persephone steps around me, startling me slightly as I’d almost forgotten she was there. “Hades will bring you a hot drink if you need it.”

I still have the end (I hope it’s the end at least) of a cold and it doesn’t surprise me that Persephone noticed. “Thank you.”

Smiling, she shakes her head. “I should be thanking you for listening to us. It’s not everyone we can connect with and having someone willing to write our stories is… well, for some of us it’s more important than others, so I’m glad that you’re around.”

Blushing, I sit in the seat closest to me as Persephone makes her way around the desk. “It’s my pleasure.”

“I know it can’t be easy. We aren’t all patient.”

“Yeah, I got that with Lucifer.”

Persephone nods. “He’s had a hard time of it. Once you’re viewed as one thing it can be very hard to get anyone to see the truth.” She pulls a piece of paper towards her, picks up one of the pens she has laying on the desk, and begins writing. “Now, what was it you wanted to talk about.”

“Your myths.”

Raising an eyebrow she glances up at me, looking a little mischievious, before focusing on her work once more. “Which ones?”

“Shall we start with the pomegranates?”

“Ah, the pomegranate that meant I had to stay in the underworld during the winter.” She laughs. “That didn’t happen. I almost wish it did, it was a beautiful piece of symbolism, but Hades and I met thanks to Hecate. She thought he could help me with dealing with the deaths I often view in the vision pool, because he’s always been a death god, and we got on well. When I fell in love with him I had difficulty convincing him that we should attempt a relationship, because I was a lot younger than him, but eventually he gave in to my arguments and we’ve been together ever since.”

“So, there were no pomegranates?”

“I do like pomegranates, but one was never a part of our courtship.”

“Okay.” I look down at the notes I’ve brought with me. “How about enchanted face cream?”

“Now that is something I used to make and Aphrodite did use it, but Aphrodite never was as jealous as the writers made her out to be in the myths. Psyche was actually one of Aprhodite’s mortal friends, until she was made into a deity by Zeus.”

“Mortals can be made into deities?”

“Yes, but only after they’ve died and only under specific circumstances.” Persephone looks up at me. “It doesn’t happen very often, so it might be worth exploring in a story.”

“Maybe I will.” I smile at her. “So the face cream?”

She turns her attention back to her work. “Yes, the cream. Deities are immortal, but that doesn’t mean that we’re impervious to all problems. The cream was for a skin condition that sometimes flares up. Aphrodite was always said to be the most perfect of us all, because she is the Goddess of love, as though they forgot that love isn’t about being perfect. Love is often more about compromise and understanding. Aphrodite is the first to admit that she’s really nothing like the Goddess so often seen in Greek mythology.”

“Is it hard to have stories told about you that are wrong?”

“Sometimes. Mostly we’re just grateful that people do still remember us and that we have a chance to put some of the stories right.” She shrugs. “Although there are still those who want us to be what they have in their mind, so they don’t listen.”

I nod. “How about painting flowers?”

Persephone stops for a seconds. “Ah, yes, that was a part of one of the myths. I painted flowers as my Spring incarnation Kore. I do actually paint, when I have time, but it’s different now that I’m a full time deity.” She sighs, writing again. “The majority of my time is spent working and any spare time I have is spent with my family.”

A noise from outside the room distracts both of us. I look at Persephone and she looks back at me, smiling. “It’s one of the puppies.”

“What’s it like having three headed puppies around?”

“Come with me.” She stands, putting her pen on the desk. “I’ll take you to meet them.”

Nodding, I also stand. I can’t say no to the offer, because I love dogs, so I let Persephone lead me out of the room and into the hallway where one of the puppies is busy chewing on a plant with all three of its heads.

“That’s Panteleimon.” She makes her way over to him and gently detaches his heads, one at a time, from the plant. “He’s gorgeous, but a total pain.”

Noticing me, the puppy bounds over and I kneel down to pet him. Having the three head makes it almost feel as though there are three dogs there who want me to scratch behind their ears, but it’s only one, and that is the strangest thing. I hear a door close, Persephone going back to her work while I’m distracted by Panteleimon.

Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.

kajones_writing: (Richard with sword)

“Come in,” Persephone says, holding the door to her study open. “Normally I prefer to meet at the clearing, it’s quieter there, but I have some work I need to get done.” She smiles at me. “I hope you don’t mind if I work while we talk.”

I smile at her. “It’s not a problem.”

Trying not to show how nervous I feel I step into the office and can’t stop myself from looking around. Opposite the door is a large desk, with a pile of papers at one end, with two bookcases either side of it. For a moment I study book titles, before stepping further into the room. To my left is a large window and patio door, leading out into the large garden; to my right there are pictures on the wall of Persephone and her family.

“Make yourself at home.” Persephone steps around me, startling me slightly as I’d almost forgotten she was there. “Hades will bring you a hot drink if you need it.”

I still have the end (I hope it’s the end at least) of a cold and it doesn’t surprise me that Persephone noticed. “Thank you.”

Smiling, she shakes her head. “I should be thanking you for listening to us. It’s not everyone we can connect with and having someone willing to write our stories is… well, for some of us it’s more important than others, so I’m glad that you’re around.”

Blushing, I sit in the seat closest to me as Persephone makes her way around the desk. “It’s my pleasure.”

“I know it can’t be easy. We aren’t all patient.”

“Yeah, I got that with Lucifer.”

Persephone nods. “He’s had a hard time of it. Once you’re viewed as one thing it can be very hard to get anyone to see the truth.” She pulls a piece of paper towards her, picks up one of the pens she has laying on the desk, and begins writing. “Now, what was it you wanted to talk about.”

“Your myths.”

Raising an eyebrow she glances up at me, looking a little mischievious, before focusing on her work once more. “Which ones?”

“Shall we start with the pomegranates?”

“Ah, the pomegranate that meant I had to stay in the underworld during the winter.” She laughs. “That didn’t happen. I almost wish it did, it was a beautiful piece of symbolism, but Hades and I met thanks to Hecate. She thought he could help me with dealing with the deaths I often view in the vision pool, because he’s always been a death god, and we got on well. When I fell in love with him I had difficulty convincing him that we should attempt a relationship, because I was a lot younger than him, but eventually he gave in to my arguments and we’ve been together ever since.”

“So, there were no pomegranates?”

“I do like pomegranates, but one was never a part of our courtship.”

“Okay.” I look down at the notes I’ve brought with me. “How about enchanted face cream?”

“Now that is something I used to make and Aphrodite did use it, but Aphrodite never was as jealous as the writers made her out to be in the myths. Psyche was actually one of Aprhodite’s mortal friends, until she was made into a deity by Zeus.”

“Mortals can be made into deities?”

“Yes, but only after they’ve died and only under specific circumstances.” Persephone looks up at me. “It doesn’t happen very often, so it might be worth exploring in a story.”

“Maybe I will.” I smile at her. “So the face cream?”

She turns her attention back to her work. “Yes, the cream. Deities are immortal, but that doesn’t mean that we’re impervious to all problems. The cream was for a skin condition that sometimes flares up. Aphrodite was always said to be the most perfect of us all, because she is the Goddess of love, as though they forgot that love isn’t about being perfect. Love is often more about compromise and understanding. Aphrodite is the first to admit that she’s really nothing like the Goddess so often seen in Greek mythology.”

“Is it hard to have stories told about you that are wrong?”

“Sometimes. Mostly we’re just grateful that people do still remember us and that we have a chance to put some of the stories right.” She shrugs. “Although there are still those who want us to be what they have in their mind, so they don’t listen.”

I nod. “How about painting flowers?”

Persephone stops for a seconds. “Ah, yes, that was a part of one of the myths. I painted flowers as my Spring incarnation Kore. I do actually paint, when I have time, but it’s different now that I’m a full time deity.” She sighs, writing again. “The majority of my time is spent working and any spare time I have is spent with my family.”

A noise from outside the room distracts both of us. I look at Persephone and she looks back at me, smiling. “It’s one of the puppies.”

“What’s it like having three headed puppies around?”

“Come with me.” She stands, putting her pen on the desk. “I’ll take you to meet them.”

Nodding, I also stand. I can’t say no to the offer, because I love dogs, so I let Persephone lead me out of the room and into the hallway where one of the puppies is busy chewing on a plant with all three of its heads.

“That’s Panteleimon.” She makes her way over to him and gently detaches his heads, one at a time, from the plant. “He’s gorgeous, but a total pain.”

Noticing me, the puppy bounds over and I kneel down to pet him. Having the three head makes it almost feel as though there are three dogs there who want me to scratch behind their ears, but it’s only one, and that is the strangest thing. I hear a door close, Persephone going back to her work while I’m distracted by Panteleimon.

Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.

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This work by K. A. Jones is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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