Harvest Moon (2 page)

But…being manipulated by love was still being manipulated. How long would it take before her mother allowed her to grow up and leave, as she did everything else in this household?

Or was she a special case who would never be allowed to grow? Her temper flared as frustration took over from understanding.

Persephone threw the shuttle again, beat at the weft with angry upward strokes, and the warp-weights clacked together.

 

Demeter glanced in at her daughter at the loom and sighed. There was no doubt that she was angry, probably at being sent to work when what she really wanted to do was be with her playmates, lazing about in the meadow. But the nymphs had tasks of their own to do today, and Demeter was not going to allow her darling to wander about unescorted. She had tried to explain that, but Persephone was hardly in the mood to listen. There were times when Demeter wondered if she would ever grow up.

But more times when she dreaded the day when she did. That would mean losing her, and things would change between them forever. Little Kore would vanish, and someone else would take her place, a stranger that Demeter might not recognize, someone who would have ideas of her own, and no longer have to listen to her mother's wise words. Demeter absolutely hated the idea that one day she would lose her little girl…if only there was a way to keep her little forever! But there was no doubt, given Kore's budding body, that even if it were possible to do so, the time to do so was long, long past.

She wished, sometimes, that she had the instincts of a mother animal. Animals knew that there is only room for one adult in the territory—and eventually even the most devoted mother animal drives her own children away. It would be easier to feel her love turning into ir
ritation—easier than the pain of knowing that one day Kore would grow into her given name and no longer depend on her mother for anything.

There were other issues at hand; this was not a good time for Kore to assert her growing womanhood. There simply was no one suitable for her to assert it with. It troubled Demeter deeply that there was no one among the Olympians that she thought was a decent match for her daughter, and a mortal—well, that was just out of the question…the loves of gods and mortals were inevitably tragic. Zeus was out of the question, Poseidon was her father…maybe. There was some confusion over those things. Apollo never even gave her a second glance. Hephaestus never looked past Aphrodite. Hermes? Never! Other, lesser gods? Not one of them was a fit husband for the daughter of Two of the Six.
Perhaps a new Olympian will join us, one that is worthy of being her consort. One with real power, but even more important, one that won't treat her as Zeus treats Hera. One who will be devoted to her and not wander off to the bed of any female that catches his eye.
With an effort of will, she reminded herself of what the Olympian gods truly
were.
Their numbers were added to—albeit slowly—all the time. And even though the tales of the mortals made them all out to be brothers and sisters, or at the least, closely related—that wasn't actually true.

Which was just as well, considering how Zeus hopped beds. On the other hand, perhaps one day that bed hopping might produce a male that was as unlike his father in that way as possible. Demeter would be willing to welcome the right sort of part-mortal for her
girl. Someone faithful, intelligent, and able to think beyond the urges of the moment.

If there was a drawback to being a god, it was that so much power seemed coupled with so little forethought. Forethought….
Prometheus?
No, she had to dismiss that, though with regret. The Titan was currently in Zeus's bad graces, and she wouldn't subject Persephone to the results of that. Besides, Prometheus, unlike his brother, had never shown much of an interest in women.

Then, again, finding a man in Olympus was never easy.

Demeter reflected back to the early days of her existence. Kore was the result of one of those early indiscretions on the part of Poseidon (although now they said her father was Zeus), though truth to be told, Demeter had quite enjoyed herself once she realized what the sea-patron was proposing. It wasn't as if she'd had a husband or he a wife in those days.

Things would be different for Kore. There would be no flitting off to some other light of love. Kore would never know the ache in her heart of watching the male she adored losing interest in her. Not if Demeter had anything to say about it.

Perhaps, Demeter reflected, she had sheltered the girl too much. She just seemed so utterly unprepared for life. There was nothing about her that said “woman,” from her short, slender figure, to her mild blue eyes that seemed to hold no deeper thoughts than what color of flower she should pick or what dinner would be. And Demeter despaired of her ever attracting the attention of a man; charitably one could describe her hair as straw-colored, but really, it was just a yellow so pale it looked as if it had faded in the sun, her eyes were not so much light-colored as washed out, and no amount of
sun would bring a blush to her cheek. And one had only to walk with her to see how the eyes of men slid over her as if they did not see her. Poor child. It was utterly unfair. Demeter could not for the life of her imagine how two gods as robust as she and Poseidon had managed to produce this slender shaft of nothing.

No, she was not ready for life. Demeter sighed and resigned herself to that fact. Kore needed nurturing and cultivation still. There was no one, god nor mortal, who was more adept at both than Demeter. Perhaps in another year, perhaps in two, she would finally begin to bloom, those pale cheeks would develop roses, and she'd ripen into a proper woman by Demeter's standards. Then Demeter could educate her in the ways of man and woman, give her all the hard-won wisdom she had garnered over the years, and (yes, reluctantly, but then at least the child would be a woman and would be ready) let her go.

Until then, she was safest here, at her mother's side.

 

Brunnhilde stretched in the sun like a cat, all her muscles rippling, and those gorgeous breasts pressing against the thin fabric that left nothing at all to the imagination. Leopold reflected happily that she looked absolutely fantastic without all the armor.

She looked good
in
it; in fact, she would look good in anything, of course, but Leopold was a man, after all, and he preferred his wife without all the hardware about her. In the gowns of his home, in the more elaborate gowns of Eltaria—the Kingdom where they'd met—in a feed sack, even. He had to admit, though, he liked her best of all in the costume of this country, which seemed to consist of a couple of flaps of thin cloth, a couple of
brooches and a bit of cord. Marvelous! Her golden hair spilled in waves down to the ground, actually hiding more than the clothing did; her chiseled features seemed impossibly feminine when framed by the flowing hair. Her blue eyes had softened under the influence of this peaceful place, and her movements had taken on a grace that he hadn't expected.

Maybe it was being without armor. The armor made you walk stiffly, no matter how comfortable it was. And the gowns of his homeland and of Eltaria seemed to involve some female underpinnings that were almost as formidable as armor.

She had the most wonderful legs he had ever seen, and it was nice to see them without greaves, boots, or skirts getting in the way of the view.

“So what is this place again, and why are we here?” he asked, lazing on his side with his hand propping up his head and a couple bunches of luscious grapes near at hand. Oh, what a woman! One moment, she was right at his side, joyfully hacking away at whatever monster it was they had been summoned to get rid of—the next she was gamboling about in a meadow as if she had never seen a sword. This was the life. It was fantastic to be doing heroic deeds together, but it was equally fantastic to have this moment of absolute indolence too.

Brunnhilde finished her stretching and began combing her hair, which, as there was rather a lot of it, was a time-consuming process. “Olympia. They don't have a Godmother because they have gods instead.” She frowned. “Which is not altogether a good idea. I mean, look at Vallahalia.”

Leo picked a grape and ate it, still admiring the view. The sweet juice ran down his throat and at this moment,
tasted better than wine. “I have to admit I am rather confused about that. If Godmothers are so good at keeping things from getting out of hand, why are gods so bad at it?”

“I'm not sure.” Brunnhilde paused, and put the brush down on her very shapely knee to regard him with a very serious and earnest gaze. “The ravens told me once that gods are nothing more than another kind of Fae, who get power and shape from worship and the mortals who worship them. So I suppose it's because we are made in mortal image? Formed the way that mortals would choose to be themselves, if they had godlike powers?”

“Hmm, awkward,” Leo acknowledged. “Given that every man
I
know would think he was in paradise if he could carry on with women the way the gods do. And given that gods don't seem to suffer the sorts of consequences from that sort of carrying-on the way mortals do.”

“And other things. Mortals, given the choice, would rather not think too far ahead, or even think at all. So—the gods they worship don't, either.” Brunnhilde nodded, and took up the brush again. “Then, of course, because awful things happen, the logical question becomes
Why didn't they see this coming?
and then the mortals make up all sorts of excuses for why infallible gods end up being very fallible indeed. Like Siegfried's Doom. Then they make us live through it. Ridiculous, really. I wish that there were no such things as gods. I'd rather be a nice half-Fae Godmother, and be on the side of making The Tradition work for us, instead of on us.”

“But if you had been, I would never have met you, and that would be a tragedy.” Leo grinned at her. She twinkled back at him.

“I don't think Wotan likes the idea of the others knowing about our true nature,” she observed. “He'd rather we all believed the creation stories, which, even before the ravens told me about being Fae, I didn't entirely believe. My mother, Erda, told me there was no nonsense of me springing forth fully formed from Wotan's side, or his head, or any other part of him. I was born like any of the others, I was just first.” She sighed. “Poor Mother. The shape and fate The Tradition forced her into was rather…awkward.”

“Your mother is very…practical, and she seems to have done the best she can with her situation,” Leo said, doing his best to restrain a shudder at the thought of that half woman, half hillside, who had done her awkward best to make polite talk with her new son-in-law without lapsing into fortune-telling cries of doom. “I was going to say ‘down-to-earth,' but that is a bit redundant.”

Brunnhilde barked a laugh. “Since she
is
the Earth, I would say so. It's a shame that the northlanders are so wretchedly literal minded.”

Her nephew Siegfried's escape from
his
fate had seriously disturbed the northlanders' unswerving view of The Way Things Were, and had shaken them all up a good deal. Having Brunnhilde take up with a mortal, and an outsider, had shaken them up even more.

That just might be all for the best. If it shakes them up enough to start changing how The Tradition works up there, everyone will be better off.

Once they had left Siegfried and Rosa, Queen of Eltaria and his new bride, Leo and Brunnhilde had worked their way up to the northlands to break the news of their marriage to Brunnhilde's mother in person—in no small part because they weren't sure Wotan had done so. It
had been an interesting meeting, if a bit unnerving. He'd sensed that Erda hadn't really known whether to manifest as a full woman and offer mead and cakes, or manifest as a hill and leave them to their own devices. She'd opted for a middle course, which made for a peculiar meeting at the least. He'd ignored the beetle and moss in his mead and brushed the leaves from his cake without a comment, and tried to act like a responsible son-in-law.

“My mother is delusional, as they all are,” Brunnhilde responded dryly. “I'd come to that conclusion once I saw what life was like outside of Vallahalia, long before you woke me up, you ravisher.”

Leo raised an eyebrow and smirked a little, since the “ravishing” had gone both ways. “You promised me you were going to explain why you seemed to know all about everything when I woke you.”

She laughed. “You see, while Father was planting me in meadows and on rocks across half a dozen Kingdoms, he forgot that I would see what was going on around me in my dreams. It's something the Valkyria can do—we get it from Mother. She sees everything going on around her, no matter what state she's in. I might not have been trudging through all those places afoot the way Siegfried was, but I learned a lot. Probably more than he did, because I wasn't having to do anything but watch and learn, while he was trying to keep from starving to death or being hacked up.”

Leo blinked. He tried to imagine what that must have been like, and failed. “Well, that must have been useful.”

“Useful enough to know when you came marching across my ring of fire I had a good idea of exactly what
I wanted.” She winked at him. He grinned. He hadn't awakened her with just a kiss, and they had very nearly reignited the fire ring all by themselves.

“At any rate, unless the mortals of our land manage to actually learn to think, now that my sisters have told Wotan what he can do with his magic spear and flown off, what will probably happen is that he'll seduce Erda all over again. She'll have another litter of daughters, Wotan will create another swarm of Valkyrias. Then, not having learned his lesson the first time, he'll philander with another mortal, produce another set of twins-separated-at-birth, another dwarf will steal that damned Ring from the River Maidens, and it will begin all over again.” She sighed. “Stupid Tradition.”