FIRST QUIVER
Copyright © 2021 Beth C. Greenberg
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests: [email protected]
ISBN (paperback): 978-1-7359447-0-8
ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-7359447-2-2
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-7359447-1-5
Cover design, illustrations, and Isotopia logo by Betti Gefecht
Edited by Susan Atlas and Dominic Wakeford
Interior design by Domini Dragoone
Family tree background image © sabphoto/123RF.com
ISOTOPIA PUBLISHING
www.isotopiapublishing.com
www.bethcgreenberg.com
First Edition
For Larry,
the truest Love my heart has ever known.
Love—Eros—makes his home in men’s hearts, but not in every heart, for where there is hardness, he departs. His greatest glory is that he cannot do wrong nor allow it; force never comes near him. For all men serve him of their own free will. And he whom Love touches not walks in darkness.
—Plato, The Symposium
1
The Fall
It occurred to Cupid as his fingernails slipped off the edge of Mount Olympus that Mother had finally called his bluff. His sandaled feet flipped toward the sky, almost, but not quite entirely, blotting out the grim faces peering down at him. If only he hadn’t seen that tear rolling down Aphrodite’s cheek, perhaps he could have avoided the sting at the back of his own eyes.
No. He wouldn’t give Ares the satisfaction.
He sank like a shuttlecock—head down, feathers up—swifter than he would have thought possible, but then what could a boy with wings know about falling? His attempts to join in when the other boys went cliff diving had always ended with a cowardly, last-minute swoop before reaching the water, but today would be different. He’d resolved to take his punishment like a man.
The sky slapped his cheeks, thrashed his eyes, burned the tips of his ears. He clenched his jaw with determination, but it was no use. Reflexes kicked in, bringing a surge of relief followed by a sharp spike of shame. His wings flexed, lifted, and flapped.
Nothing.
Faster he fell, though his wings beat harder. Flapping then flailing then flipping, an end-over-end freefall. Feathers flew every which way, clogging the sky like a giant pillow fight until there were no more feathers to lose and no way to slow his descent. Wind whistled through the scant folds of his chiton, all that preserved his last shred of dignity.
He sucked in a shallow breath, then another. Blood pounded in his ears. His heart raced as if trying to beat the rest of him to the mountain’s base. The vivid colors of Mount Olympus ran together like a smeared oil painting as he tumbled past, dizzy and disoriented and utterly at the mercy of the laws of physics he probably should have paid more attention to at the academy.
His first glimpse of the Great Cloud choked his lungs with dread. The gray vapor formed a chilling likeness to the jaws of Zeus, open to swallow him whole. Breaching the border of the mortal world was expressly forbidden, but he could not have stopped his ghastly tumble to beg entry even if he wanted to. He braced for a crash, but the gate stood wide open.
Cupid dragged in his last breath of Olympian air, committed to memory his final blurry glimpse of the only home he’d ever known, and disappeared into the blinding froth.
The cloud closed around him like a thick, wet fleece. Icy droplets slipped between his lips and clung to his eyelashes. The dense mist slowed his drop to a sufferable pace, more drifting leaf than falling brick. Foam plugged his ears with silence. All he could hear was the wildly erratic beat of his own heart and the thoughts banging around in his head. Suspended between two worlds, he was profoundly alone.
Not even his own mother had stood by him.
Would she still not care if the gods were to decide to torture him? The prospect of physical harm sent a violent shiver through Cupid’s body. He had never much concerned himself with the fate of Prometheus, but now he couldn’t shake the image of the great Titan chained to a rock while a giant eagle tore away at his exposed liver, day after day for all of eternity.
What if the gods required feats of great strength? He no more possessed the brawn of Hercules than he did the forbearance of Prometheus, thus the ultimate fear: What if I fail? He wouldn’t be the first fallen god not to see his home again, he recalled with a heavy heart.
Fear worked itself into a knot of bravado. To the Underworld with all of them! He’d run once his feet hit the ground—or drag himself if his legs were too mangled—and not even try to earn back his boring, predictable life. You’ll be sorry then, Mother.
As if answering for the goddess who’d birthed him, the Great Cloud spat Cupid out with a brutal shove into Earth’s atmosphere. The mortals’ air tasted bitter, he decided with a smack of his lips. The color palette dulled to muted blues, greens, and browns, as if someone had drawn a curtain over his eyes. He wondered if he’d adjust to this new world or if he’d even want to. A forceful tug cut short his speculation.
Invisible arms dragged him toward the ground with alarming velocity. Earth’s gravity, he recalled suddenly, was serious business. His shoulders twitched out of habit but only reminded him he had no landing gear whatsoever.
He fought back terror with the might of three thousand years of faith in his mother’s love, though he had to acknowledge he’d sorely tested Aphrodite this time. Cupid was still weighing his mother’s heart when the grassy field rose to meet his bottom.
2
Resurrection
If Pan were capable of a heart attack, Mercury’s sudden appearance in the weight room might have given him one. Only the wing-footed messenger of the gods could have bypassed the security desk at Pan’s gym without notice.
“Greetings from the gods,” said Mercury.
Pan carefully lowered his barbell to the floor. “Nice sweatpants, Dad,” he said, grinning at his father’s attempt to blend in with the mortals. “Did you knock off The Gap on your way here?”
Mercury forced a smile. Never a good sign.
“Oh, shit. Don’t tell me they’re sending Clotho back down to serve out the rest of her sentence.”
Six years ago, Clotho’s punishment had run into the kind of nasty snag the gods abhorred, one that drew attention. As the Fate responsible for spinning the thread of life, Clotho’s arrival in Tarra had wreaked havoc on the town’s fertility rates. The sudden increase in pregnancies might have prematurely forced Pan out of Indiana if the Board of Health hadn’t mistakenly correlated the spike with an entirely coincidental increase in the consumption of a certain locally produced bone broth, hence the so-called Bone Broth Baby Boom. Clotho wasn’t completely to blame, really. Divine powers didn’t translate predictably to earth’s atmosphere, as the gods above were well aware. Fortunately for all involved, Clotho was called back to the Mount to reverse an accidental death, returning life in Tarra, Indiana, to its usual monotony.
“No, Clotho’s sentence was commuted,” Mercury assured him. “Case closed.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” Pan said. Catching the odd expression on Mercury’s face, he added, “Isn’t it?”
“Yes, of course. Um, I don’t know how to tell you this . . .” The hesitation was curious. Since when did his father get emotional about delivering a mess
age?
“Just say it already. You’re freaking me out.”
“It’s Cupid.”
“Cupid?” Freak-out complete. Every hair on the back of Pan’s neck stood on end.
“Yes,” said Mercury. “The Divine Council has passed judgment. Nine minutes until touchdown.”
“What? Why?”
“You know they don’t give me the details, son. Some mischief with his arrows. It is not good.”
Pan’s thoughts became a montage of Cupid’s previous escapades, none of which had ever gotten him exiled before, nor had Pan imagined they ever would. Not with Aphrodite, the High Priestess of Enabling, on deck to clean up her son’s messes.
Oh, Q, what have you done?
Pan knew the drill. Managing the paperwork was no problem; the hard part was being resurrected from the ashes of Caesarea every time a new divine fell to earth. And now, because of some dumbass prank, the confrontation Pan had always feared was hurtling directly toward him like one of the mortals’ heat-seeking missiles.
“The terrible twosome rides again, hmm?” Mercury’s elbow nudge and wistful tone held just enough cheer to make Pan’s gut lurch, but he pulled himself together before answering.
“Don’t know about the riding. Sounds like Cupid’s gotten himself into deep shit with the gods this time.”
“And you’ll be right here to help him out of it,” said Mercury.
“As if that will make up for two thousand years of deception.”
Mercury set his hand on Pan’s shoulder and squeezed. “We all did what we had to do, son. He’ll forgive you.”
3
Earthling
Considering the chaotic journey and the crash landing, Cupid was remarkably unscathed.
“Huh,” he marveled out loud, testing his new voice. It was deeper than his voice on Olympus. Liking the sound of it, he babbled just to hear the rich tones reverberate in the unfamiliar atmosphere. “I made it in one piece, Mother, in case you’re worried,” he said, tipping his chin skyward and sending up a stiff–handed salute.
He ran his fingertips across his bare chest, expecting to be met by soft flesh, and was shocked to find hard mounds under taut skin and . . . was that actual chest hair? He dropped his gaze to behold the wondrous sight. His fingers had changed too, grown longer and more slender. He flipped his hands over and back, staring as if they belonged to someone else, then applied the foreign fingertips to twin columns of wondrous, muscular ridges he’d only ever seen on bellies other than his own—not that he hadn’t tried. He’d even traded favors for training sessions from Hercules, but no matter how much weight he lifted or how furiously he crunched, his body could never respond. And here was the physique he’d always desired without any effort at all.
Emboldened, he pressed his luck—it seemed the day for it—and swept his thumb over the bunched fabric in his lap. A grin widened across his face. Whatever lurked under his chiton was substantially larger now than when he’d left home.
This new body of his would have been cause for jubilation if not for his dire predicament. That he appeared to be freed from the bondage of perpetual puberty only meant the Divine Council had something far worse in store for him.
Saving the more intimate exploration for later, Cupid stretched his legs out along the ground and ran his palms down the thick, muscular ropes of his new thighs, relishing the power he sensed just below the skin. His toes poked out well past the edge of his sandals, a man’s feet in a child’s shoes. He unbuckled the leather straps and wriggled out of them.
Setting his bare feet beneath him, he pushed off the thick grass floor and stood, a good forty centimeters taller than before. He dusted off his hands, admired his well-developed arms for a moment, then pulled his fingers through his hair. The soft curls of his Olympian form had lost their downy feel; the new hair was fuller, straighter, and coarser. Pondering his missing curls, he drummed his fingertips on his chin.
“What’s this?” he inquired aloud, knowing full well he had sprouted whiskers for the very first time. “Great Zeus!” His palms scrubbed merrily up and down the new growth on his cheeks.
He rolled his thickened shoulders back a few times, getting comfortable in his new body. He’d been so distracted by his muscles and his phallus and his stubble, he’d forgotten entirely about losing his wings. While those wings had never burdened him, he couldn’t help but notice shedding their weight was a tremendous relief.
He reached back and ran his palm over one shoulder, finding skin instead of feathers. He craned his neck around, fearing a gaping hole, but there was no grisly crater, no scar, not even a nick. Nothing.
Well, not exactly nothing. There seemed to be writing of some sort. He’d have to find himself a looking glass. There was so much about this Earth body he still needed to explore. As if feeling excluded from his considerations, his stomach gurgled and groaned.
The internal noises were answered by a rustling of foliage at the edge of the clearing. Panic filled his chest.
4
Reunited
As the leaf crunching grew louder, so did a breathy, musical sound that instantly reminded Cupid of home. The low-hanging tree branches gave way, and Cupid did a double take when a man strongly resembling his long-lost best friend Pan advanced toward him.
Cupid stared with wide eyes. A familiar thicket of red hair ran from the top of the man’s head, connected to neatly trimmed vines covering both of his ruddy cheeks, and disappeared behind the flute at his chin. Where Pan would have sported two pointy horns, this man had a forehead as human as Cupid’s. In place of the satyr’s hindquarters, a man’s lower body appeared, ending with two human feet in place of hooves. Obscured by clothing, the finer details were uncertain.
The deep-green twinkle from the other man’s gaze strummed an unmistakable chord deep within Cupid’s soul. But how? This man in front of him was definitely not a satyr, and he was also very obviously alive—unlike Cupid’s best friend.
With a lump in his throat, Cupid hazarded a quaky trial of the once–frequent name on his tongue. “Pan?”
The redhead nodded once as the flute fell away from his mouth. “Welcome to Earth, Q.”
Cupid squinted, though his vision had never been clearer. “Is that really you?”
“I might ask you the same, my friend.”
He’d mourned his best friend for the last two thousand years, and all the while, Pan lived and breathed? Confusion and elation took their turns with Cupid. It seemed very little of his previous reality had survived the fall. He wasn’t at all sure he minded.
“You’re alive!”
“Well, aren’t you the observant one.” A chuckle accompanied the voice Cupid had known so long and so well.
“I don’t understand.” Cupid scratched his head and regarded Pan’s patient smile. Perhaps the fall had muddled Cupid’s mind, but Pan seemed real enough—in fact, more vital than ever. Cupid shook off his doubts and threw his arms around his old friend, bending to adjust for the slight difference in their new heights. “I’ve missed you so much,” Cupid said, tightening his hug. Tears sprang to his eyes.
Pan squeezed him back, his grip as strong as Cupid remembered, then pulled away with a hearty slap on Cupid’s back. “It’s great to see you too, man.”
He inspected Pan’s lower half once more, but his eyes had not deceived him. The satyr was a satyr no more. “What happened to your hooves and tail?”
“You didn’t pass them on your way down?”
“I don’t know. I was too busy falling.”
A sudden burst of laughter startled Cupid. “You’re still you on the inside, I see,” Pan answered, landing a punch on Cupid’s arm that, surprisingly, didn’t hurt.
“As are you.” Cupid was comforted to see Pan up to his old favorite pastime, even if that pastime was teasing Cupid.
“Sorry. I couldn’t resist
,” Pan responded. “I suppose my goat parts are hanging out with your wings at some great Bacchanalia far from here.”
“I know. Look at me!” Cupid spun around and waved his arms at every possible angle, celebrating his newfound freedom.
Pan set his fingers onto the base of Cupid’s spine and slid them slowly upwards, tracing a line where the wings used to be. “Hmm, what have we here?”
“It says something, right?”
“Indeed. You’ve got yourself some serious ink, my friend.”
Cupid craned his neck to see. “Is it something fashionable?”
Pan chuckled. “Depends on your fashion sense. It’s Plato.”
“Plato?” Awe hushed Cupid’s voice. “What’s it say?”
Pan read the message inscribed up Cupid’s back. “He whom Love touches not walks in darkness.”
“Huh,” Cupid said, pivoting to face Pan. “What’s that mean?”
“I’m guessing you’re supposed to figure that out.”
Cupid’s open-mouthed gawp melted into a foxy grin. “Do you think this ink will make me popular with the girls down here?”
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” said Pan while looking Cupid up and down, pausing for what felt like a disproportionately long time on his midsection. “Last time I saw you, the only action you were getting was the five-knuckle slip-n-slide.” Pan shook his fist in an obscene gesture. “And now, look at you. You’re all grown up and . . .” Pan trailed off with a low rumble at the back of his throat.
“Sculpted?” Cupid could practically see Michelangelo standing beside him, chisel in hand, admiring his masterpiece.
“Yes, Narcissus,” Pan replied with a smirk. “When did all this happen?”
“Just now. While I was falling.”
“Just now?” Pan said, his mouth holding onto the ow. “You mean to tell me you’ve been stuck with that sorry excuse for a willy until today?”
First Quiver Page 1