The Gift From Poseidon: When Gods Walked Among Us (Volume 2)

by Ginegaw, J. A.

  A shining morning sun bathed the gardens behind the Great Repository of Knowledge in both light and warmth. It was here where the first, second, and third-year students now gathered. Fourth and fifth-years inside the repository, the smallest group made up of sixth-years led by Marseea were in sight, but sat tucked away in a far off corner of the gardens.

  “Gather round, gather round,” Komnena ordered, “and take your seats on the grass.” A small number of tutors rotating often, the Sapien historian would teach the youngest group today.

  Centaurs and Arachna came together on one side of the group while Mermaids and Gryphons sat on the other side. A stone pathway that wandered around the gardens kept the two groups about a pike length apart. Third-years to the front, second-years sat in the middle, and first-years sat in the back.

  Two large fountains and the most famous, most splendid structure in Terra Australis behind them dominated the gardens. This marvel based in granite, constructed of bronze and gold, adorned in jewels, and drenched in water sat between the fountains. Many students now paid as much attention to it as they did to Komnena.

  “The Golden Clepsydra,” she announced after a harsh cough, “has sat majestically in that same spot for centuries, and will continue to do so long after I am finished and all of us are dead.” Komnena’s loud, stern voice suddenly turned soft and mischievous. “As Queen Marseea is quite eager to unleash a spell this fine morning, I would kindly suggest all eyes on me.” Even the first-years not foolish enough to tempt their headmistress, everyone gave Komnena their full attention.

  A handful of older students such as Fu Xi – he was a fourth-year – would shadow new students for the first week or so, and they now stood around the seated younger ones. But whether standing or seated, this mattered not – all noticed the young Mermaid. As if taking turns, Fu Xi watched each student sneak a peek at the princess. As a first-year, Evagoria sat to the back – she no doubt noticed every pair of wandering eyes. In the sun-drenched glory of her golden hair and piercing ice-blue eyes that could carve a heart in two, the demands of her instruction revealed the next Mermaid queen to all.

  Rules, regulations, expectations, demands, so on and so forth; Komnena droned on and on without pause for what felt like forever. The instructors expected a great deal from their students. As they paid a hefty sum each year for these teachings, noble parents held high expectations for the instructors as well.

  “This needed introduction,” Komnena finished, “beyond a doubt the most boring part of our first day for tutor and learner alike – it is time for a break! Up and be gone, young vagabonds of noble blood, up and be gone!” She looked in the direction of the Golden Clepsydra. “In a mid-turn we will return here and begin our initial studies.”

  As many months had passed since most returning students last saw each other, every one of them joyfully leapt up and did as told.

  During this break, Fu Xi gazed upon a most curious Huaxia Centauress. She was hopelessly awkward, yet at the same time, owned a sweet elegance. In a slow, sly manner, Fu Xi drew near the one who fascinated him in a way another did the same to her. Alas, Yishuo gazed not his way, but toward Adamarcus. Like Evagoria, this was also Yishuo’s first day of Sapien teachings. Unlike Evagoria, however, she did not capture Adamarcus’ attention. He instead focused on the Mermaid princess now lounging next to a fountain by herself. Taharqa and Persepolis stood to each side of their Aeropid friend and gawked with him.

  “Typical Mermaid,” Yishuo seethed as she stomped in place. Her voice was somewhat deeper than one would expect from a fourteen-year-old. “Sunning at a fountain all by herself – I guess she is just too good for the rest of us!” Huffing and puffing, Yishuo threw her arms over her chest and looked down. She then squealed in delight. Standing a couple pike lengths behind her, Fu Xi looked down as well – quite the opposite of Yishuo, he very much did not like what he saw.

  An eight-legged, brilliantly colored creature with claws like a tiny lobster and a narrow, upright tail curved inward crawled near Yishuo’s left front hoof. Adoring the slimiest of creepy critters as a youngling does baby bunnies; the wispy Centauress unwisely scooped it up and pranced happily in Adamarcus’ direction. Very unhappily, Fu Xi followed.

  “Look, Adamarcus, look!” Yishuo gasped in her most engaging voice. “Come see! Come see! It’s so pretty.” She flashed him an inviting smile and set her wide, endearing eyes normally beset with sadness on his. Long, flowing, perfectly straight black hair shaped her demure, now hopeful face. “It’s for you! Do you like it?”

  Fu Xi slid to Persepolis’ right side. The greenish-yellow scorpion angrily walked up and down Yishuo’s sleeveless arm. As it did so, the four friends stared in disbelief at both it and its oversized pinchers snapping wildly.

  “Um, sure – that – uh, very pretty,” Adamarcus stammered. He took a step back as if afraid it would leap at him.

  “Yishuo, scorpions can be dangerous … very dangerous,” Fu Xi cautioned in a calm, steady voice the exact opposite of his racing heart. His hair just as dark and nearly as long as Yishuo’s, he tugged nervously at the topknot keeping it taught. “Many of those we see in Lacanesia are not poisonous, but I have never seen that kind before. It might be a good idea to put it down.”

  Yishuo ignored this caution and allowed the creature to scurry up and down her forearm. When it crawled close to her hand or elbow, she brought her other forearm close and the scorpion continued on it. Yishuo did this repeatedly and appeared to feel no fear while doing so. Taking great joy in this, she flashed Fu Xi her most charming look. The next moment, every speck of this cheery charisma vanished.

  “Ouch! Help! Ouch!” she whimpered sharply.

  Yishuo now marched in place from the sudden pain and breathed in sharp gasps with stunned, hurtful eyes. Both of the scorpion’s pinchers had clamped onto the skin of her bare forearm.

  “Someone please help me!” Streaming tears quickly stained her scrunched face.

  Fu Xi grabbed Yishuo’s arm and tried to keep it steady. Having no clue as what to do, his three friends stood frozen in place and did nothing. In truth, Fu Xi had no idea how to help either. He did not know how to unclamp this tiny terror hurting the one he craved to protect, but he knew exactly what it meant when a scorpion arched its back and raised its tail high. Not thinking of himself, with his left hand holding her left wrist, Fu Xi thrust his right hand atop Yishuo’s forearm – right where the scorpion sought to sting her.

  “AAAAAAHHHHHH!” With this piercing cry and his head whipped back to the sky, Fu Xi buckled to his knees. Its stinger still embedded in the top of Fu Xi’s hand, the scorpion swung widely by its tail. With the help of the other hand holding his trembling wrist, he forced the throbbing hand to the ground.

  His eyes near blinded by the pain, Fu Xi more heard than saw Komnena rush toward him. Because it feared her or was simply happy to be close to the grass again, the scorpion dislodged its stinger and scampered off. After a few moments, the three friends and Komnena helped Fu Xi to his feet. Sweat poured off him and he began to shake wildly. Although there was now more than one of her, he saw Yishuo cover her face with her hands. Her foolish attempt to convince Adamarcus to share the same feelings she had for him had failed.

  Advantage, Fu Xi!

  “Penthesilea,” Komnena gasped, “has healed many a sting such as this. She will know what to do.”

  Adamarcus and Taharqa gave Fu Xi a squeeze of his arm and a couple of pats on the back. Melanippe had come over just after her mother did and now helped to steady Fu Xi on one side while Komnena did the same on the other. As Yishuo took her first steps to follow, she peeked back in Adamarcus’ direction, but he did not return her gaze. Disgraced tears flushed into her remorseful, almond-shaped eyes. Fu Xi watching this through his own stinging eyes, he would have grinned if not in so much pain.

  Advantage, Fu Xi!

  Yishuo followed behind Komnena, Melanippe, and Fu Xi in the same way a harshly scolded youngling would. He repeatedly looked b
ack at her. As if she bore a heavy weight of shame across her shoulders and around her neck, her head hung low. Her steps somber and her whimpers weak, most times that Fu Xi peeked back at Yishuo, she was looking to her rear as well. In a heartless manner only she felt and that Adamarcus was wholly unaware of – Evagoria was again in his sights – he refused to throw even the slightest glance her way. The few times Fu Xi and Yishuo’s eyes did meet, she whispered to him how sorry she was.

  Advantage, Fu Xi!

  “That colorful scorpion, Mother,” Melanippe said softly, “I believe it is quite poisonous. Maybe even the most poisonous of them all. Along with Penth’s potions, I think we might need medics as well.”

  Fu Xi ready to collapse upon hearing these words, only Yishuo’s soft, warm hand now rubbing his back kept him from doing so. Close to the repository’s doors, Komnena sent Melanippe off to find an Arachna medic. Out of jealousy, anger, or both, Yishuo took Melanippe’s place and wrapped her arms in his left one. This suited Fu Xi just fine – as long as he did not die from the scorpion sting completely her fault, of course. Certainty of wretched sickness, likelihood of sweat drenched nights, possibility of death, with a bit of luck, Yishuo shamed into nursing him back to health.…

  Advantage, Fu Xi!

  *****

  Fu Xi’s father was a fine Centaur, but it was his mother, Nüwa, who taught him the ways of the world. For reasons she had yet to tell him, both the Chiron and his wife, Carolinica, adored Yishuo. Already with two young ones of their own – Adamarcus and Ixchelene – they treated this one as if a third. And this was most likely why Fu Xi’s mother adored Yishuo as well. Her parents of meager means could never afford Sapien instruction and never had to try; Alexander’s charity – in both money and power – granted Yishuo a place among them.

  “Seeds she was born with,” Nüwa tried to explain to Fu Xi more than once, “have finally gathered properly. The time is now at hand for them to march the delicate flower Yishuo is into the onset of womanhood. Today, she is unable to understand this fully, but she will someday. And when that day comes, one lucky Centaur will thank the gods for the greatest of gifts.”

  Fu Xi understood this – at least he told his seventeen-year-old self he did – but in some ways, many ways, these words helped little. Yishuo was just so different. Her body for the most part moved in the right direction, but her mind often refused to follow. Fifteen years old come summer, Yishuo still cradled tight a youthful disposition and mindset more suited to a Centauress years her junior. All this was true, yet of all the young Centaurs that Fu Xi knew of, only Adamarcus owned a mind more capable than her curious one.

  Clumsy when standing still, Yishuo was pure magnificence when in a full sprint. If there was a faster Centauress in all of Lacanesia, Fu Xi had never heard of her. Another pocket of wonder sewn into his heart each time their eyes met, these many oddities simply made the threads stronger.

  Casual friends for years, a season ago, Fu Xi’s feelings for Yishuo smashed into him harder than a Yeturi’s mighty swipe. Why he had yet to admit his feelings for her ––

  Yes, that’s it – he was still in a hazy daze from this smack!

  At least that was the story his mind stuck to when his heart pleaded for him to do so. But things had now changed. Fu Xi’s advantage secure….

  Had the time come to reveal such feelings?

  Chapter Thirteen

  A BOLD APPROACH

  Her goldenrod mane glimmers in the same way the rays of the sun bounce off a placid sea. Ocean blue eyes not just for seeing; they exist to entrance another, to hold him spellbound as her giddy slave. A birthmark over her right eye in the same shape as the diamonds Gryphon miners dig from the ground simply enhances her beauty. When he gazed upon the first Mermaid, Thessalonika, for the very first time, Hephaestus gasped: “Only by the hand of Poseidon could a creature the perfect shade of death be so striking, so beautiful.” Well said, my fire-starter friend and beloved father to my kind … well said.

  – Adamarcus, Aeropid Centaur

  – Mid-Spring, Year 4,253 KT[16]

  “I feel sorry for the Centaur she decides to go after someday!” Persepolis blurted once the foolish, the brave, and the historian drifted out of sight. He shivered his black and gold self as if trying to shake off a chill.

  “You said it, Persepolis,” Adamarcus agreed without a look back.

  Taharqa’s handsome dreadlocks just bobbed up and down as he nodded his agreement. Proud of these dreadlocks that ran to the middle of his back, he often bragged how he was even prouder of how often his father, Seneferre, begged him to cut them. All three second-years and friends since any of them could remember, Taharqa was a few months younger than Adamarcus. Although Persepolis was more than a year older than either Centaur, King Achaemenes thought it best that his son attend studies with his closest friends.

  The hectic happenings now over, the three resumed their gaze in the direction of the fountain. Evagoria still sat along the edge. Her tail uncovered, a silk glacier white corset covered the princess’ torso. That most of the students were too shy to speak to the stunning Mermaid was not a shock, but to see her all alone as she rewetted her tail sack was. Adamarcus was no expert on Mermaids – that would be Taharqa – but he knew that young ones needed to do this many times throughout the day until close to adulthood. From then on, to soak his or her tail twice a day was enough.

  Evagoria gazed to the east – her left – and giggled as she watched a group of first-year Gryphons gather around and gawk at the Golden Clepsydra. Next, her eyes met those of Prince Zacharias. His adopted brothers, Ahuram and Ahriman, followed just behind him. Engaged in a locking of the eyes for a few moments, Adamarcus watched as one future regent nodded to the other.

  A strategy of how best to approach the Mermaid princess finally settled on, with Taharqa in the lead, the bold trio stepped forth. Everything about Mermaids awed the giddy Nubian. The one that others spoke of as a near mythical creation now in their presence, he just had to talk to her. Once they drew close, Evagoria offered them a shy smile and soft eyes. Taharqa breathed in the scent of discovery and wonder, and then fired off the first in a series of dumb questions.

  “Hello, I’m Taharqa.” He bowed. “You are Evagoria, princess and daughter of the Mermaid queen, yes?”

  Evagoria smiled a bit wider and nodded.

  A rare one indeed, most Mermaids would have quickly pointed out the outright silliness of such a question. The princess was polite enough not to, but not the prince. With the uninvited help of harsh whispers in Taharqa’s right ear, Persepolis brought to light his friend’s dimness.

  “Did you swallow a spoonful of stupid for breakfast? The only Mermaid alive with blonde hair and blue eyes – who else could she be?”

  No doubt to deflect attention away from both himself and his goofy introduction, Taharqa pointed to his friends behind him. At once, the bold Arachna stepped forth.

  “I am Prince Persepolis, favored son of King Achaemenes and first in line to the crown.” Taharqa and Evagoria both giggled at this pompous presentation. As they did so, Adamarcus eagerly took a few steps forward. Before he could open his mouth to speak, Evagoria instantly drew her eyes to him and proclaimed her first words.

  “Adamarcus – son of the Chiron! Yes, good Centaur, your name has indeed reached my ears.” She took a moment to look each of them in the eye. “Do not look so surprised, my new friends. Above all else, Mermaids celebrate achievement and gifted creatures – no matter the nation.”

  Adamarcus could feel Taharqa and Persepolis turn their dumbfounded looks in his direction. His own eyes still on Evagoria now grew wide with wonder.

  The ‘heavenly creatures’, yes, this was what many called them, but THIS one was above them all!

  Evagoria’s grin turned into a more serious look. With narrow eyes, she began to size them up. Next, she pointed the separated middle and index fingers of her right hand at the other two.

  “All the same,” Evagoria continued, �
��I have never heard of a Centaur called Taharqa or an Arachna named Persepolis.” She let out a sigh as if disappointed. Evagoria then perked up, those icy blues sparkled once more, and her voice turned cheery. “But fret not! I’m sure that someday each of you will do something noteworthy – at least somewhat – to merit your names reaching our shores.”

  Centaurs were rather thick-skinned creatures. Arachna Majora – not so much. Persepolis’ bouncing pedipalps and restless front legs trying to say the words his mouth could not, Taharqa would not give him the chance.

  “Is it true?” he blurted out as if he could not hold back a moment longer. “Is it true, Princess, that you are a gift from Poseidon? Some are even so bold as to suggest his blood runs through you, yes?”

  Adamarcus gazed at Evagoria as if under the spell of a powerful mystic. He heard Taharqa’s questions, but the words were muffled somewhat, as if coming to him in a dream. How long his Arachna friend stared at him, he had no clue, but out of the corner of his left eye, he now caught Persepolis doing so.

  Was it that obvious the golden siren had so easily captivated him?

  Taharqa yet to notice, he focused on his bold quest to continue his unbroken string of dumb questions. “By Poseidon’s hand, are you a goddess in the form of a Mermaid?”

  Only this brainless question was powerful enough to knock Adamarcus from his charmed trance. He shook his head to rid himself of his dazed stupor and then turned to face Persepolis. Mouth open ready to answer, a swift pedipalp to the ribs closed it shut.

  “Don’t answer that!” Persepolis whispered sternly.

  Smarting from this jab, Adamarcus nodded with a wince. Next, they pointed their stunned looks at the silly Nubian. As if an eager youngling waiting to be unleashed into a hall filled with new toys, Taharqa shook with anticipation. Adamarcus and Persepolis kept their shocked looks steady as they again turned to Evagoria.