The Ariadniad - Conclusion

[ebonchalice]

Title: The Ariadniad
Author: El-Sharra
Rating: NC-17
Summary: The Life of Ariadne, princess of Krete
Warnings (if any): some light BDSM, rape; and it's long
Notes: This is the compleated version of a story that I posted (the begings of) under my old LJ account a few months ago.



The Ariadniad - Part Three

I felt sick at this one last betrayal, but I was resigned to my freedom and did not mean to be chased by the Kretan navy. There stood a great stone tower, and at the peak a statue of a bronze man. Daidalos had made it, of course and had let me name him Talos as a child. There was a single tube running from deep within the earth to the bowl cupped in his hands. Through it ran a strange air that kept the fire he held burning day and night and made the harbor one of the safest of the seas.

I ran to find the youth, Philoktetes who was the best archer aboard and pointed the metal vein out to him and told him to shoot with a lit arrow. Fire reigned out from Talos’ leg only seconds before the body of Asterios fell into the sea. The brazen form of Talos stood firm though the flames greedily ate away at the docked ships and I breathed easy, knowing I was safe.

I stayed leaning against the railing of the ship until I could no longer see the flames in the distance. Whether that meant they had died out or we had sailed beyond their glow I did not know. I tuned and climbed down into the cabin the check on Theseus.

He had developed a fever and was thrashing in his bunk. I spent the next two days tending to him, waiting to see if he would live or die. It was about sunset on the second day that he broke from his delusions. He had been speaking of his time below and the horror he had seen. Death, destruction, I had though the physical wounds he had faced were hard, I worried that he might never return from the mental ones. But my fears were, as far as I ever learned, groundless.

We had by-passed Aegilia thinking it too close to Krete and on the fourth day we docked at the Isle of Cythera. Theseus judged it safe enough to give the crew a two day respite from the hard rowing they had done to free us from Kretan waters. But the Athenians and I would stay below decks lest rumors of us make its way to Minos. We had eaten our evening meal and I was checking Theseus’ wounds when I finally found the courage to ask about the three days in the underground palace.

He didn’t answer me but asked me a question instead, if I ever wondered why he had agreed to bring me with him. I had of course and told him so.

“We are alike” he said. “God-touched, the hand of an immortal hangs over everything that we do.”

I had not thought of that and the idea of it shocked me greatly. I thought back to the vines that once clung to the inside of my room. At the time I had assumed they came because of Kharis, but with Theseus’ words I wondered.

He laughed at my reaction. “It’s your eyes. You can always tell those touched so by their eyes. I’ve seen it many times before. Helen, Castor, even Minos; I get my eyes from my father. He was the one who sent me to Krete, I told you that yes? Aegus thinks he is my father, but my mother already carried me inside her when Aegus in a drunken haze was lead to her room by her father. My grandfather saw the advantage of a dynastic marriage with the glory of Athens but all he ended up with was a bastard heir and a daughter who refused any suitor after that. She said it was Poseidon who had come to her the eve before. She followed an owl that had flown into her rooms out to the sea shore and there, coming out of the waves was the Sea Lord.”

He laughed a low bitter laugh. “The beast’s eyes held that same god-touched look you know I saw them in the stair-well, that’s where I learned how to kill it; it could not hurt me if it could not reach me. The halls and stairs of that place were small enough for protection, but the beast was strong and could tear down walls and burst trough them as easily as I opened a door. I tried to stay out of its reach as much as I could.” He shrugged his bitten shoulder, “I was not always successful. But I managed to bleed him with my spear, tiny cut after tiny cut until he was weakened and slower. It was your string that ended it. I had been using it as a map as you had said and I drove him in circles back through the halls and tripped him over the string and wrapped it around his throat and muzzle. I clung to the beasts back with the yarn as a reign and stabbed at his face and eyes with your little blade until it died.”

He apologized then for leaving them behind and I laughed and forgave him. I asked if he wanted to talk about what he had seen down in that killing pit, he said no, it was still too soon to re-face those horrors.

We must have fallen asleep talking for when I awoke I was lying on his bed and his arm was flung over my waist. I moved as slowly and softly as I could as so not to wake him and find my way to my own room. I had turned to climb off the bunk when I felt a hand take hold of the back of my shift.

“Princess” he said, “I would like my payment now”. He was incredibly strong; he pulled me back onto the bed sitting and straddled my thighs. He placed his hand in the center of my chest and pushed me flat onto the bed. “Will you pay it willingly?”

I struggled to find an answer for him.

His hands stroked my hair as he waited for an answer. I swallowed and nodded, untrusting of my voice.

He was not an attractive man- short, stocky; built for battle. His neck was too thick, his hair unkempt, but there was something arousing about him - the way he sat, the way he spoke, self aware and self- assured . He chuckled and began to undress me, pulling my chiton out from under me

I laid passive beneath his exploring hands, my fear only adding to my desire, and to his. He stood and undressed himself, tossing clothing haphazardly to the floor. I had seen him naked before this, tended his wounds and seen his scars. But the sheen of sweat outlining his muscles was new and so to the swelling of his phallus, thick and stiff in his hands as he stroked himself, eyes trailing over my body.

He climbed back onto the bed and back on top of me. His hand entwined in my hair and he jerked my head back sharply. I gasped with pain and my hips thrust themselves upwards grinding into his pelvis.

Theseus stared at me with a look of wonder in his eyes, like a child who witnesses the mysteries for the first time. He drew his hand back and I though he would caress my face but his palm struck across my cheek with a thunderous clap. My head flew to the side and a moan of pure pleasure escaped my lips.

“You like to be hurt?” He asked in amazement. I nodded, just a little, half embarrassed and half in shock at his discovery.

His finger traced up my stomach and between my breasts. I was shivering in fear but also in anticipation. His fingers took my nipple between them and he squeezed and twisted. The shock of it ran through me to my center. His other hand traveled between the cleft between my thighs and came away glistening with moisture.

“You’re wet, Princess” he said to me and forced his fingers into my mouth. The sharp earthy taste filled my mouth and sucked the last of it off my lip.

He rolled over and pulled me on top of him and pushed my head down to his phallus and thrust himself into my mouth. He bucked his hips and I near choked on the size of him. I found a rhythm and began to rise and fall with his thrusting, enjoying the sensation of his hands pinching and scratching my body. He began to thrust wildly and quickly threw me from him with a moan.

If there is one thing I have learned about boats, it is that there is always rope within arms reach. He turned and grabbed a coil, stiff and coarse with salt-spray. He tied it around my wrists and threw the other end over the beams above the bunk so that I was stretched taught and kneeling before him.

There was an arms length of rope left and he took a small knife from his pile of clothing and cut it from the rest. I felt the knife blade trail down between my shoulder blades and a tiny bead of blood mingling with my sweat. He wrapped the rope around his hand and drew back. The first lash of the coarse fiber made me gasp, the second made me moan. The third lash made me explode with pleasure. With his spare hand he began rubbing between my legs. With each lash he would thrust his fingers deep inside of me.

I was crying, not from pain, though there was certainly that, but from the shock of pleasure his whipping brought. Each strike made me desire more. I lost count of the number of the times that he put the whip to me before I began to beg him for release, begged to feel him inside of me.

He laughed that infuriating laugh and began to scratch and slap my skin. He raised his hands to my hair and pulled my head back as possible and thrust himself into me as hard as he could. The pain was excruciating and all through it I pleaded for more. I wanted to feel him hit me, to strike me, to whisper obscenities in my ear. I felt a burning heaviness building inside of me, growing with each push. I tensed and jerked against my bonds and felt a warm pressure escape from inside me with a low moan.

He took his little knife and cut the rope holding me to the ceiling; with my wrists still bound, I fell forward onto the bed. He knelt behind and reached under me and pulled me onto my hands and knees. He pushed himself inside of me again, but this time his fingers, slick with my wetness pressed against the orifice above where we were joined, they slid in with a sharp pain that made me tighten around him. Fingers and phallus moved together in a sharp rhythm,

I could feel the heat building inside of me again but before it could be released he withdrew from me. I thrust myself back, outraged at the sudden emptiness I felt. I could sense his smug smile as he pressed himself against my opening. His fingers moved underneath me as he pressed himself slowly inside of me.

The pain was intense. I cried out begging him to stop, praying that he wouldn’t. Back and forth he moved, slowly at first but speeding as his hand continued to play between my thighs, I collapsed against the bed and the rough spun sheets scratched my face and muffled my screams.

I began to rock back and forth with his movements, matching his rhythms at first, then harder, then faster. Both his hands grasped my hips and he began to thrust wildly and out of synch with my movements.

I heard him howl and I must have joined in myself, though it sounded as if it came from another’s throat. We both went rigid and I could feel him throb and spend himself inside of me even as the evidence of my own pleasure poured out of me onto the bed.

He collapsed forward, exhausted and rolled off beside me. We were both breathing hard and he shook as he cut the bonds from my wrist. The sharp tip of the knife nicked the inside of my wrist and I gasped with delight.

Theseus looked at me with amazement, and perhaps a little amusement; “my Lady, I am speechless” he said to me and collapsed into sleep. I began drifting off after him; in my exhaustion I was unsure though in the distance, somewhere I thought I heard a mans amused laughter and faint words telling me to enjoy this, but that I was spoken for already and did not belong to the man I lay beside.

The next morning I awoke to find Theseus holding my wrist and looking at the rope burns there. He walked over to a chest lashed to the wall and rifled through it. He came back carrying two thick wrist cuffs. One was adorned wit the visage of Aphrodite, the other with Enyalius. I laughed at the appropriateness of it. He placed them on me saying that a princess could not be seen sporting such marks; then he demanded payment for his thoughtfulness.

When we had finished repeating last night’s games he returned to the chest and brought back a neck collar to cover the new bruises he gave me. Thought the matching earrings he gave me were, he mumbled while blushing, purely a gift. He didn’t, he said, want to split up the set.

Afterwards Theseus went above deck. The crew had readied the ship while we were occupied and we had set sail towards Ephyra and then to Athens. I had lain down on the bed to think, wrapped in nothing but Theseus’ thick cloak and the jewelry he had gifted me. I still had to decide what I would do when we got to Athens or if I would stay on one of the islands. I had nearly made up my mind of traveling onto Khokhis in Euboea and drifted off to sleep.

I fell into a dream quickly. I watched myself walking alone and barefoot along a shore line. I screamed in horror as arrows, silver as the moon, reigned down onto me and left my bleeding onto the white sand. The blood that flowed from my wounds was a vivid deep purple; a colour kings go to war over. Small vines began to grow from my body and a mist rose from it, like a cloud of breath on a cold day.

There was a sensation of rocking, of being thrown into myself and I heard a voice somewhere telling me to go above and that all would be well.

I was thrown off the bed with such force that the crate I landed on exploded into splinters. The boat had tilted nearly on its side. The Athenians came barreling into the room just as I was pushing the door open and reaching for the ladder to clime topside. They tried to hold me back and called me a fool, and while I agreed passionately with them my feet kept moving me forward.

I fought to keep standing as I was buffeted with all manner of objects. I half crawled half pulled myself to the ladder and forced myself to climb. The vessel was swaying from side to side and I felt nauseous and dizzy. It took all my strength to force the hatch open and when it finally did the wind ripped it from my grasp with such a force that the nails were tore from my fingers.

Rain pounded against my face and I had to shield my eyes form the needle-like pain. I gripped the ladder and peered out at the chaos that surrounded me. Theseus griped the , mast and was shouting orders, the crew was dashing around securing lines and tying crates and doing all manner of things beyond my keen. As I watched, a giant wave rushed the ship and slammed onto the deck. The boat was tossed onto its side again and I saw three men slide off into the angry, dark waters below.

The ship fell back upright and I climbed out of the hold. I walked calmly across to the center of the wet deck naked with Theseus red cloak flying out behind my like a wing and my hair whipping around me like a living creature. The ship rocked again but I did not fall. I flung my arms towards the sky and called to the sea god and begged him to stay his hand.

The air flew from my lungs and a heat, such as at the center of a kiln ran through me, yet still I did not fall. The crew had stopped what they were doing and stared at me with fear and awe and wonder in their eyes, staring at me naked and soaked and calling out to the heavens.

The air began to warm and the rain fall more gently though all around us the sea still churned and writhed with a fearful roar. But all around us in a perfect circle the waters calmed. It was Theseus who broke the spell the crew was under calling for oars and rowers. I do not know how long I stood there calling out for Poseidon’s grace, hours at least, but finally the sun rose on the eastern horizon and the clouds parted and winds settled at its coming; I stopped chanting and fell to the deck, unconscious.

We had been blown off course farther than any would have thought possible and found berth on the island of Naxos. The ship had suffered a great deal of damage, thought the hull was still sound, the people of Naxos were eager to help with the promise of payment and trade. I had still not awoken and Theseus himself carried me to the temple. He even had the care to bring with him the little pouch that carried my treasures.

He stayed in the temple with me for three days, watching the priests tend to me, saying little and worrying much. It was sunset, the beginning of the fourth day when a messenger came to tell him that the ship was ready. He told them that they would set out at sunrise and went to see to the last details. He returned just before dawn to say his farewells. The priests had told him not to expect my survival and all felt it was best if I remained in their care. He brushed the hair from my forehead and kissed me more gently then he ever had before.

“I am a better man for knowing you, Princess. I will look for you in Elysium if I ever make it there. I will see your bravery remembered.”

He kissed me again and I shuddered, gasped and my mortal body died.

In his kindness Theseus bid the temple to remember me every year and gave them great gifts in my name. He called me a goddess of love and told them that I came out from deep in the earth to calm the seas. In his grief he ordered black sails hung and the ship sailed out of the harbor.

The priests gathered around my lifeless body and began to prepare it for the pyre. It was very singular sensation staring at myself lying upon the cot. One of the novices removed the neck ring from me and gasped at the bruises there, a vivid purple against the chalk white of my skin.

I could not watch anymore and, in truth I felt no need to, I no longer felt any connection to my flesh. I felt more alive, more real, more solid than I ever had before. I turned and began to walk back towards the beach. I began to cry at the beauty that surrounded me. Every colour was clearer, the birdsongs sharper, the smells richer. I cried at the wonder of it and lost myself in little things. The red of a woman’s laundry, the white of a villagers home, and then I saw the sea. I walked to the edge of the water and fixed my eyes upon the horizon. Theseus’ ship was far from the island by this time and yet if I thought hard enough on it I could see it riding the waves towards Attica. I stood there until the sun set saying goodbye.

I did not know what to do, though in truth I felt no rush to do anything. I saw no river, no ferryman, no bridge or doorway or gates. There was nothing calling me or drawing me on. I went to look for a place to sit and turned to find standing before me the most perfect and beautiful being one could imagine. His perfection was painful to look upon and I knew that if I had been alive I would have never been able to gaze upon his brilliance. I fell to my knees before this god, for god I knew he was- truly, what else could he be.

His hair was a rich deep brown and crowned him like a lion’s mane. His eyes were blue, not like the sea but like the sky at dusk, with a hint of violet and madness. The moonlight shone down on his form- tall and lean, his ribcage high and his chest wide. He wore wrapped around his waist the skin of some great black cat and carried a staff covered in vines.

He reached his hand out to me and pulled me to my feet. His touch burned and sent a wave of lust rolling through me. He smiled at me and I thought I would faint.

“Ariadne” his voice was deep and rich and filled with the darkness of the earth, it made my knees weak and I struggled to find words to speak to him. “Be at ease my love, be at ease and understand.” He held a shallow cup to my lips and I drank. My eyes widened at the taste, sharp and sweet and potent. It was cold and yet a strange fire ran down my throat and into the core of me. I swallowed again and this time images flooded my mind even as that heat flooded my body.

It was as if I relived my life. Every second, every moment relived and remembered all in a heartbeat. Yet it was different. There was always this young god there with me- playmates in the cradle, youths running through the halls and later, older running through the forests, hunting, making love. I danced with dryads and sang with satyrs and screamed shrill howls at the dark moon with blood drenched women. I remembered his body pressed close to mine in my underground chambers, Kharis curled up on other side.

I know these things did not happen, I remembered the harsher truth of my life and yet these new memories flooded them out and I clung to them with a ferocity that was frightening.

As was the love I felt for him, frightening as well because of what it meant I must also accept. His madness, his wrath, fits of depression and solitude- all these were a part of his nature and so too a violent lust. And who better, I thought, then one who seeks these things for pleasure to bear the brunt of his release. I loved the terror he brought, the ecstasy just as I loved the tenderness and compassion.

If the memories he gave me were lies, then so be it. But beyond them, beyond the lies was truth; all that I learned of him in that lifetime was true. I fell weeping into his arms, he laughed and wiped them away from my eyes and from his as well. And where his fingers touched the water, small purple stones fell away.

He kissed me and my mouth flooded with the taste of his drink. His hands stole to my waist and came away with the small leather pouch I always carried there, though I had seen it last laying upon my chest back at the temple.

He upturned the bag and the two shriveled fruits burst to fullness at his touch and he threw them onto the sheep pasture at the edge of the beach. The field exploded with life, thick green vines covered the field in moments frightening both man and beast into chaos causing him to laugh that roaring laugh of his and brought us both to tears.

My little ring, the one Kharis had woven for me grew green and large and pliant in his hands and he placed it upon his brow and bowed to me.

“I have watched you, I know you. Ariadne, daughter of Kirke, daughter of Helios: elder even than I. Few can bear my attention, fewer still my love. Thou art queen of the Bakkhae and thou art my queen.”

He looked at me expectantly, waiting to hear my acceptance. “Dionysus,” I said to him, “son of Zeus, son of Semele. Thou art king of the Bakkhae and thou art my king.”

He placed his hands above me and I heard a sound like wind over an open jug and a crown was placed upon my head. I reached up to see it, golden and covered in waves and bearing five great pearls. I looked at him quizzically.

“An old betrothed gave it to me in remembrance when she married another and bid me give it to my true love when I found her. It is beautiful, but it does not suit your beauty.” He took it and it became a liquid light in his hand. He placed it back upon my head as a golden copy of the leafy crown he bore; he took the pearls and flung them high into the heavens (and their light shines down still).

He kissed me and tossed his panther skin aside. The sensation of his body pressed to mine was as familiar as breathing and yet it was charged with the passion of the unknown. He laid me down upon the green vines in the field and began kissing me, upon my lips, upon my eyes and brown earlobes and cheeks. He kissed down my neck and body and all down to my toes and then back up again. Fire rippled out at his touch and when his tongue slipped out to taste my skin I thought I would die a second death from fever.

He spread my legs before him and poured his purple drink over me and bowed his head to lap it up.

He slid up my body until we were face to face and held himself up on his strong arms. We talked as we made love, slowly and leisurely. We spoke of things joyous and sad, of his sorrow at his inability to change my life in truth and remove the horrors I had undergone. While I agreed I also understood. And more than that- I accepted.

There was no rush to our lovemaking and we would stop and lie in each others arms and talk, only to have wandering caresses spark passion anew. The sun had set and most of the villagers had wandered away, only a handful of priests stayed to still wonder at the field of leaves and vines. Most of the priests had gone to light the pyre that held my mortal flesh. It was odd knowing what was happening on the other side of the isle but my lord found ways to distract me well.

His slow rhythm quickened and his eyes glazed over with a look of wildness, he gripped my shoulders and thrust himself into me harder and harder each time until I was screaming in pain for him to not stop. My nails raked his back and my body went taught and all was white light.

That had been the very moment the flames had toughed my pyre and all the villagers had heard the cry I made and came running to the field. All around us the vines hung heavy with thick bunched of ripe purple fruit. I was unaware of all of this at the time. My lord had taken my hair in his fist and forced my mouth around his thick phallus. He bucked hard against my throat then stopped. And animal-like moan broke from him and the villagers jumped and murmured in fear and awe, one or two looking in our direction with squinted eyes and a look of deep thought.

I felt him throb and spill himself in my mouth, warm and thick and it ran down my throat and burned like his drink did before.

“Ambrosia my love,” he whispered into my ear “thou art goddess now.”

He reached down into the leaves and pulled forth a gown of deep purple and settled it over my shoulders, it hung around me like water. Nymphs stepped out of the breezes and wove my hair atop my head.

Creatures, beings of light stepped out of the shadows and with them music and the smell of food and drink upon the winds. Gods and goddesses and others older then even them came forth and called me sister and gave to me the kiss of kinship and welcome.

Thus I became what I am: Lady of the Mysteries, Queen of the Bakkhae and the love of my lord, mother of gods and mortal kings. Not such a strange fate perhaps for one born of a sea-sorceress and pirate-lord and raised by who I was.

All this in one crimson thread, eternally entwined with a wine-dark one. I drop my hand form the great loom it is the anniversary of my mortal death again and sometime I like to return to Naxos; to visit the vineyards, see the beach and make love to Dionysus among the vineyard and make the villagers stop and stare and wonder.