Fic: Embroidering The Truth
Title: Embroidering The Truth
Author: apotropaism/Kraken
For: the Jack buggery
Fandom: Greek mythology
Pairing: Arachne/Athena
Rating: PG13
Disclaimer: Not my characters, not Ovid's either, goddess knows who to blame from them!
Embroidering The Truth
Arachne, daughter of Idmon, smiled as she worked, seeing dainty petals grow beneath her quick fingers. Intent, she barely heard the murmurs of the watching women, and she needed no one's approval to see that this length of cloth was her best piece yet. It was well-crafted: fine and soft, and more richly patterned than any other maiden she knew could achieve; more magnificent than even a long-married matron could match, and yet it still fell short of the image in her mind. It fell so far short of her target that when her pleasure in the task itself was spent, her heart was heavy with her failure.
Despite her own dissatisfaction, her name began to be spoken beyond Hypaepae, and with each ornamented robe she finished, her fame spread further from the village. The occasional traveller came out of his way to view her cloths and offer her gold for her handiwork; the rarer women visitors came to watch her work, to talk of materials and techniques. Sometimes she learned things from them, but none of them wove quite as skilfully as she.
#
One cloudless noon, when Arachne had paused in her efforts to bathe her hands so the fine threads would not cling to her sweat-slick fingers, a stranger arrived to speak with her.
She was tall and lovely to look upon, finely clothed, and fair in speech. Her company amused Arachne, and she was glad to show grey-eyed Myrrhoe the embroidered fabric that she had come to see.
Myrrhoe watched the labour of her hands in silence, and Arachne found that harder to ignore than all the gasps and gossip of her usual audience. The stranger was more interesting than the prospect of her household duties, and she watched Myrrhoe from under her eyelashes. Her own peplos was damp and clung unpleasantly, but Myrrhoe looked cool and composed.
When Arachne stepped away from her work to fan herself for a moment, she smiled at the taller woman.
"Is this what you wished you see?"
Myrrhoe moved closer to the loom and looked at the work in progress with a keen gaze, then reached out to test the weave by touch, eyes falling nearly closed as she ran her fingers over the rows. Arachne did not usually permit anyone to handle the work of her own hands, but something halted the reproach ready on her lips. She watched Myrrhoe's pale, pale skin caress the cloth, and found her throat was suddenly dry.
"Your technique is excellent."
Arachne frowned. "My thanks," she said. "Yet it does not please you?"
Myrrhoe faced her. "One day you will be unmatched by any mortal woman," she said, and nodded: one serene bend of her head.
In that moment, Arachne felt cool, almost chilled. A shiver of unease rippled within her body, and she clasped her hands together in the appearance of modesty and curtsied, half-convinced that the woman spoke prophecy. Speechless, she kept her eyes downcast until the other woman laughed.
"Are you not pleased by the thought, Arachne? Do you not desire fame?"
"My lady, I desire…" she looked up, into grey eyes that seemed to pierce her soul, and had no courage to speak madness. For madness her desires seemed in that moment, and Myrrhoe must be more than she seemed. "I desire to form the pictures I can see in my mind. Others call my cloths fair, but they do not see what I intend."
Myrrhoe smiled, her approval for the girl warmer than that she had turned on her embroidery, and something seemed changed about her face for a moment, a hint of beauty that far outstripped her previous fairness as the sun outshines a lamp. Dazzled, Arachne had never wished for anything as much as she wanted to reach out to that flawless face, to touch it with the reverence due to perfection.
Then her secret glory was hidden again, but Arachne knew from that moment that the woman was not merely mortal. Her heart was wrung with fear and loss: for surely even the fairest nymphs never looked thus, and she faced a goddess. What goddess would suffer the touch of a poor weaver-girl, with nothing but the imperfect skill of her hands to commend her?
Her glimpse of divinity tangled her in feelings as supple and complex as the dance of warp and weft upon her loom. As Myrrhoe fingered the cloth again, Arachne could almost persuade herself she felt that caress on her limbs and she shivered.
Dizzy with heat and shame and longing, she thought O Myrrhoe, I am thread in the hands of the Moirai, and the pattern they make of my life changes around you…
When the other woman looked at her, she forced herself to attend, and ignore the clamour of her pulse and breath and mind.
"Your eyes falter, not your hands: you have not learned to see truly yet. It will come with time. Look; the pattern here," Myrrhoe traced a blossom outline, "This is pretty, but it has no life. If you use more shades, blend one into the next - may I show you?"
Myrrhoe arched her brows as she waited, and Arachne's lingering flush deepened to the crimson of the skies before the white light of sunrise.
"Oh, yes, please," she stammered, and when Myrrhoe reached to pick up the shuttle, she stooped breathlessly and snatched it up. Presenting it to the goddess, she felt the unfamiliar ache within her intensify at the smile of thanks given to her.
Myrrhoe's fingers flew, and Arachne, usually so eager to improve her craft, heard her voice and not her words; studied her fingers, her face and form, and heeded none of the lesson. Barely even seeing the rows the woman added to her own, she knew that she would finish this length of cloth and use it herself: fashion it into a peplos or a blanket for her bed, and enfold her body in a chaste cloth embrace that would remind her of Myrrhoe.
Of the goddess, she reminded herself, and wondered dreamily which goddess Myrrhoe was: she did not care, while she was here.
The minutes seemed long; heat-soaked fragments of eternity spaced by Myrrhoe's melodic voice, and her movements as she worked. Arachne dimly considered that perhaps time had stopped and hoped it was true; knew it wasn't, and that she must explain her immodest heart soon. She must speak or be left with the bittersweet recollection of just one afternoon, a memory of her propriety that would pain her for as long as the memory of Myrrhoe's face stayed fresh in her thoughts.
It took most of her courage to stand beside Myrrhoe, waiting for her attention, aware of what she intended to do. Myrrhoe finished the row before she returned a reserved gaze on her and Arachne timidly reached out, seeing her own skin surprisingly tanned against the marble-pale hand below hers.
"My lady - Myrrhoe. Myrrhoe, what is it you desire?"
Myrrhoe considered before she smiled, a hesitation so slight it would have passed unremarked during idle chatter.
"To help you achieve your dreams."
"And for yourself?"
Despite her composure, there was a change in Myrrhoe's manner, a hint of silver in her grey eyes, the promise of divinity behind the human semblance.
"Recognition."
With the tranquillity of truth, Arachne said, "My lady, you have it. Is there nothing else I may offer you?"
The mortal girl lifted her hand towards Myrrhoe's cheek but dared not complete the gesture, fingers trembling in the air; she was abashed and then afraid before the aloofness in the other's eyes, and could no longer meet her gaze.
Her face was stained by her hot blood; Arachne unconsciously twisted her fingers in the loose waves of hair that fell over her shoulders.
Myrrhoe's mild laughter made her lift her head in surprise.
"A weaver indeed, but you might do better to practise with wool rather than your own tresses!"
Arachne blushed even darker at the mellow teasing.
"Let me pin up your hair; you will feel cooler."
Wide-eyed, Arachne nodded.
"Thank you," she said, her voice hoarse, scraping through her dry throat.
Gentle but efficient fingers pulled a comb through her hair, and Arachne closed her eyes and wished it would take forever, her senses alert as Myrrhoe plaited her hair and coiled it on top of her head. Her bare neck felt cool and vulnerable, and she lightly bit her bottom lip to suppress a gasp when Myrrhoe's fingers brushed her skin as she caught up a few stray strands and tucked them in. Teeth still indenting her lip, she found it hard to breathe, shallow quick panting that that seemed loud to her own ears, and she considered with heady amusement that this was permissible: perfectly proper.
Women arranged each other's hair all the time. Several maidens had brushed her hair before and it had never changed her heartbeat, yet…this was allowed. Anything else she might do now was not, but she would risk it if she had a word of encouragement, one meaningful glance, just a single sign that Myrrhoe would welcome her attentions.
She guessed that Myrrhoe's offer of hairdressing had been made to deflect any further questions, yet it could be safely returned.
"The air is quite close," she said carefully. "Shall I bind your hair up too?"
Was that surprise she saw in those guarded eyes? If so, it vanished swiftly.
"That would be kind, Arachne, thank you."
Faintly proud of her own cunning, she waited while Myrrhoe took her place on the stool, then slid the teeth of the comb slowly through her tangleless locks, far softer than her own hair, softer than flower petals, softer than anything she had ever felt. Entranced, she combed it until she saw Myrrhoe had become uncomfortable: her back and shoulders were straight and stiff.
It was hard to resist the weight of the thick mane slipping through her fingers, cool and supple, the finest threads she had ever worked with, and she wove Myrrhoe's long curls into an elaborate coronet, humming under her breath.
Bending towards Myrrhoe's ear, she murmured, "Done," close enough that her breath must have brushed her skin, and would have presumed further if she had not seen how tightly her fingers were interwoven, knotted in her lap. Arachne stepped back, to allow Myrrhoe freedom from her rigid stillness.
It was clear to Arachne, with a sudden brilliance like stepping from the shady house into the direct sunshine of the courtyard, that Myrrhoe was not sure of herself. Newly convinced that her coldness was not fixed in her heart, that she could be thawed, Arachne touched her closed hands and they loosened. Unruffled by Myrrhoe's hard stare, she drew the taller woman to her feet, and looked up into her face.
"Myrrhoe."
It was a question and a statement in one, and Myrrhoe stood as though she had frozen solid, an ice maiden in truth. Arachne released her hands and cupped her face, waiting in searching silence before she leaned in towards her. Myrrhoe tasted like nothing she could name: something fresh and pure, like...wind and starlight and silver. Passive for only a moment, Myrrhoe chose, and returned the kiss with enough feeling that it took a moment for Arachne to notice the light was strangely bright through her closed eyelids, and longer for her to care. When she opened her eyes, she broke the kiss and gasped, basking in the soft bright light: the façade had fallen, and the goddess was glowing, skin lit from within, shining like mother-of-pearl.
Laughing in a breathless burst, Arachne was grateful for Myrrhoe's firm grip on her arms; she was shaking and her legs were reluctant to hold her weight.
"You're beautiful," she said inadequately, not really speaking to the vision before her: she marvelled over her as if she were a work of art.
Her goddess had cooler skin that she did, a refreshing shock wherever they touched, but it was her face that made her so far from human and transfixed Arachne. She was not merely graced with ageless beauty but a fierce intelligence, and her features were stamped with authority to a degree that Arachne had never seen before on a female face.
The goddess bent her head and kissed her again, and Arachne clung to her helplessly, almost afraid of the force of the feelings welling up in her. Some quality in her touch betrayed Myrrhoe's immortal origins, as though the radiance was more than light; a tangible show of her power, of divinity, and Arachne was bathed in her essence, suffused with the light of godhood - gifted, gilded with a little of that perfection. She was raised from her humble status to something purer, more worthy of a goddess's lover.
Only when she closed her eyes, overwhelmed, could her desire become more urgent than her awe, and she pressed disbelievingly close, trying to kiss and speak, want and worship all at once. All she could manage was to babble, "Myrrhoe, my Myrrhoe," and then she was left blinking in the dimness as the light extinguished and Myrrhoe let her go.
Confused but already beset with terrible loss, Arachne cried out, the swift tears not obscuring her sight so much that they hid the other woman's face from her. The disguise was back in place, and Myrrhoe looked irrevocably stern.
"Forgive me. I meant no offence," Arachne sobbed, kneeling at the goddess's feet and reaching out to clasp her knees as a tear-stained supplicant. Myrrhoe moved out of range with martial grace, and the only passion in her gaze was hostility.
"My lady, you are not so cruel - please, forgive me. Don't look at me so harshly!"
The goddess had more control over her voice than her eyes: her voice was merely cool.
"Foolish girl. What mercy are you worth? I revealed my self to you, I honoured you with my true face, and you failed to appreciate it! Which goddess is called Myrrhoe?"
So deeply betrayed that she lacked words, Arachne could only stare pleadingly through her tears, hands and face beseeching where her voice failed her, and she thought the goddess softened for a moment. Then she left, with such speed and suddenness that Arachne never had the chance to speak, and was left crying. She sat on the floor, face pressed to the cloth still stretched on the loom, tears falling where the goddess's hands had touched the wool.
#
The longing did not leave her. Nor did the sorrow, but the desire was worse, unassuageable craving for a glance from grey eyes, for her mellow voice and elegant speech, for that blinding loveliness that no human could hope to match and which she might waste away for the lack of.
As the days turned into weeks which slowly faded into months, Arachne began to feel angry instead of alone. A goddess should not be a coward, should not lie, and use hurt pride and pettiness as an excuse to hide from unaccustomed feelings, no matter how unusual and alien they were to her.
She immersed herself in her craft, and her weaving improved almost by the day, so determined was she to better her abilities, to become perfect. Her memories of the goddess's face did not blur, and she had the image fixed in her mind, a standard to aspire to - a vision she wanted to be able to recreate.
She thought about the identity of the goddess, toyed with the idea of minor divinities: Klotes, a goddess of spinning, or the weaver Lina, who used flax to make her fabric, but she knew who the grey-eyed goddess must be, and it made her heart harder. Pallas Athena was renowned as the wisest of goddesses, most temperate and reasonable: how could she act with so little perception?
Meanwhile, Arachne's name spread across all of Maeonia for her skill at the loom, and the local women clustered at her house daily to watch her work, even if she was only spinning or dying the wool in preparation for her cloths.
#
Arachne was far more interested in producing the most even thread possible from her spinning than she was in the discourse around her, but the name Pallas captured her interest instantly, and she lifted her head. Euippe, one of the nymphs from Tmolus, was staring with chagrined admiration at the depiction of galloping horses that Arachne had been stitching earlier.
"Inspired by Pallas," the nymph repeated to herself, sighing.
Arachne said nothing. She returned her attention to her spindle, and her eyes flashed as she dwelt for a moment on the unwitting truth behind Euippe's words.
"Or taught by her?" a matron demurred. "Arachne must have learned from an excellent teacher."
"I have learned from many people," Arachne said tactfully, not looking up. "But I owe the goddess of weaving only as much as each of you does."
She owed Pallas many things, she knew, but they had nothing to do with the goddess's patronage of feminine duties. Her mind was filled for a moment with Myrrhoe's face, her touch, and when Arachne returned to the present she found a stranger was lecturing her. The newcomer seemed to be championing Pallas Athena, and accusing Arachne herself of claiming to be the goddess's equal.
Briefly she wondered how anyone could wring that interpretation from her words, and then the woman stopped speaking and met Arachne's irritated stare. Silver threaded her hair and she clasped a wooden staff, but Arachne doubted her infirmity, staring into familiar grey eyes. Triumph and temper mingled in her, and her complex anger won. Laying aside her work, she rose and walked over to confront the woman, wrathfully amused at the goddess's vanity that had not allowed her to change the rare shade of her eyes.
"Your long life has warped your sensitivity," she accused boldly, selecting her words with all the care she would devote to picking the precise shade necessary for her embroidery. "Save your wisdom for your own daughters - should you have any! I need no advice from you; I know my own heart. If Pallas is threatened by my skill, she knows where to find me. Let her come and prove herself, if she dares - should I lose, I am hers to command."
"Your words carry the taint of hubris," the elderly woman warned. "Request Athena's forgiveness, and she may still overlook your folly."
"I say that if she is offended by my words, then she is afraid that I will best her. I call upon Pallas Athena to show herself my better," Arachne said.
Grey eyes blazed, reflected the light, silver as the sea, and the goddess shed her disguise.
"Pallas Athena accepts your challenge!"
Arachne was deaf to the terrified clamour behind her as her admirers sought to distance themselves from her, several of them both kneeling piously and holding on to each other in fear. Arachne scarcely bent her head, unable to bear losing sight of the goddess for more than a moment, heedless of her apparent disrespect.
"My lady Pallas," she said, a feverish colour spreading across her cheeks.
"Are you resolved upon your foolish contest, mortal?"
Few people would have dared to meet that bitter gaze, merciless as an Erinys, but Arachne had waited too long to see her again and stared back. The promise of hot fury lay not far behind Athena's frosty façade, and she was glad to see it: only indifference would have been beyond bearing, and even hostility showed some spark of Myrrhoe still present in Pallas. Warmth suffused her body, and she found hatred in her heart for her companions, whose presence kept her from speaking her mind.
She could not lift her voice above a whisper.
"If it is the only way to gain your attention, my lady, then yes. I am ready."
"As you wish."
She gestured for Athena to accompany her into the house, and they started to set up the loom in silence. Arachne's companions, subdued but determined not to miss anything, crept in after them and sat back against the walls out of their way.
Both worked quickly, heedless of the passing of time or the effort of their labours, bright pictures taking shape before the enthralled witnesses. Long before they finished, it was clear that each tapestry was a marvel of craftsmanship, beauty, and propaganda. The myths portrayed were well-known to the watchers, all figures were recognisable portraits, and their messages were not hard to read.
The central scene Pallas portrayed was her victory over Poseidon, to name the city of Cecrops after herself. A miniature scene in each corner showed other contests in which mortals had pitted themselves against divinities, and each had been harshly punished for their failure. The cloth was edged in a border of olive boughs: Athena's symbol of peace.
Arachne wove many scenes of the gods seducing mortal women: contests of another kind, in which the deities were as successful as in Athena's representations. In each scene, a god took on a shape not his own, to deceive and win over the coveted maiden. The tapestry was edged with flowers woven into a garland of ivy, the vine worn by wild maenads in their wanton frenzy.
Finally stepping away from the loom, the girl rubbed her aching arms, and watched Pallas from under her eyelashes. The goddess seemed unwearied, and her fair hair gleamed, making Arachne herself seemed rumpled beside her. The mortal gazed upon Athena's hanging, and her skin paled as she knew her peril at last: her work was no less fair than the goddess's, and Pallas would not forgive that easily. Clasping her hands tightly, she turned to look at the deity.
Pallas might have been a perfect ivory statue as she studied Arachne's cloth: no sound or movement betrayed the slightest flicker of life before she made her judgement. Bright colour burned on her cheeks, and Arachne faltered and shrank back as the goddess lashed out, rending Arachne's tapestry into shreds, her outraged expression more terrible than her violence.
Those of the nymphs and village maidens who had not already slipped out unnoticed fled before the storm of slighted divinity.
"I meant no offence," Arachne whispered, the folds of her peplos crushed in her fists. "My lady, I concede the contest. You may do as you wish with me."
Pallas Athena lifted one pale hand, and stared at the shuttle still clasped in it, as if it were something she had never seen before.
"You may not speak. You dared to degrade my kin!"
She made a slight, scornful gesture towards the ripped scraps of embroidery on the floor.
Arachne blinked hard, unwilling to shed tears before the goddess. Lacking any chance of winning a reprieve, with Myrrhoe's warm regard as far out of her reach as the stars, she clung to her ragged dignity as the only thing she had not lost.
"Mockery and spite fill your heart, mortal."
Heartsick, lacking even conviction that the goddess's disgust was undeserved, Arachne sank to her knees and lifted her hands, entreating for the chance to defend herself.
"My lady, you showed me your light when we last met, then left me alone in the dark. You-"
Pallas Athena raised the shuttle and struck Arachne's forehead, shocking her into silence. The girl began to raise her hand to protect her face, and Athena smote her again. Arachne gasped, staring at Pallas wordlessly, tears painting her face, glittering in the glow the goddess cast, and when she reached out to touch the goddess's knees in supplication, Athena struck her a third time.
Self-restraint was the quality that marked Pallas out from the other divinities. Arachne knew that if she had driven the goddess to such extreme ill-feeling that she would pay for today with her life; by death or by some transformation, akin to those people metamorphosed into birds and mountains, now immortalised on Athena's tapestry. Athena was known to be slow to kill, even to defend her modesty and honour; and Arachne found the thought of living, enduring the lust for perfection that her first glimpse of divinity had left her with, was more than she cared to endure. If Pallas wished to punish her for hubris, it must erase some of her shame to end her own life. She was beyond help, but it might ease the shame she cast on her father if she went to dwell with Hades, rather than being reshaped into a warning to small children everywhere not to provoke the gods.
Untying her girdle, Arachne scrambled up and stood on a stool, fumbling to create a noose before Athena took her fate out of her hands. Athena crossed the room swiftly, as she slipped the noose around her throat and pulled it tight, and the goddess's mien was perturbed. Halting her attempt to hang herself, Athena looked at her with a frown.
"You may not die, Arachne. You ceded your life to me; I will let you keep it, but not as you are now. You are the finest weaver of all the maidens in the world, but now you shall be a finer weaver still, and so shall all your descendants after you."
Arachne's hands trembled, and her voice failed her. Mouthing soundless prayers, she found desperate courage, and touched the goddess, her own hand nearly as cool as Athena's this time. The goddess did not resist or move away, but her distant expression remained unbroken, and Arachne's breath turned into a sob. Head bowed, she waited for her metamorphosis.
Pallas sprinkled the girl with a potion distilled from Hecate's herbs, a trace of sorrow softening her face as the alterations grew more marked, and Arachne's body shrank and changed. The goddess lifted her hand, regretful fingertips brushing empty space as Arachne shed all of her hair and her skin darkened. As she swung and dropped on the finest thread imaginable, Athena bent and caught her before she reached the floor. Regarding the spider on her palm with an enigmatic expression, the deity walked to the door and held her out to let her crawl onto the wall.
"Spin, Arachne: weave death shrouds for your prey. Your tapestries shall be nets for insects now, not a goddess."
The grey spider began to create her first cobweb as Pallas Athena departed, leaving the room a little dimmer.
Author: apotropaism/Kraken
For: the Jack buggery
Fandom: Greek mythology
Pairing: Arachne/Athena
Rating: PG13
Disclaimer: Not my characters, not Ovid's either, goddess knows who to blame from them!
Embroidering The Truth
Arachne, daughter of Idmon, smiled as she worked, seeing dainty petals grow beneath her quick fingers. Intent, she barely heard the murmurs of the watching women, and she needed no one's approval to see that this length of cloth was her best piece yet. It was well-crafted: fine and soft, and more richly patterned than any other maiden she knew could achieve; more magnificent than even a long-married matron could match, and yet it still fell short of the image in her mind. It fell so far short of her target that when her pleasure in the task itself was spent, her heart was heavy with her failure.
Despite her own dissatisfaction, her name began to be spoken beyond Hypaepae, and with each ornamented robe she finished, her fame spread further from the village. The occasional traveller came out of his way to view her cloths and offer her gold for her handiwork; the rarer women visitors came to watch her work, to talk of materials and techniques. Sometimes she learned things from them, but none of them wove quite as skilfully as she.
#
One cloudless noon, when Arachne had paused in her efforts to bathe her hands so the fine threads would not cling to her sweat-slick fingers, a stranger arrived to speak with her.
She was tall and lovely to look upon, finely clothed, and fair in speech. Her company amused Arachne, and she was glad to show grey-eyed Myrrhoe the embroidered fabric that she had come to see.
Myrrhoe watched the labour of her hands in silence, and Arachne found that harder to ignore than all the gasps and gossip of her usual audience. The stranger was more interesting than the prospect of her household duties, and she watched Myrrhoe from under her eyelashes. Her own peplos was damp and clung unpleasantly, but Myrrhoe looked cool and composed.
When Arachne stepped away from her work to fan herself for a moment, she smiled at the taller woman.
"Is this what you wished you see?"
Myrrhoe moved closer to the loom and looked at the work in progress with a keen gaze, then reached out to test the weave by touch, eyes falling nearly closed as she ran her fingers over the rows. Arachne did not usually permit anyone to handle the work of her own hands, but something halted the reproach ready on her lips. She watched Myrrhoe's pale, pale skin caress the cloth, and found her throat was suddenly dry.
"Your technique is excellent."
Arachne frowned. "My thanks," she said. "Yet it does not please you?"
Myrrhoe faced her. "One day you will be unmatched by any mortal woman," she said, and nodded: one serene bend of her head.
In that moment, Arachne felt cool, almost chilled. A shiver of unease rippled within her body, and she clasped her hands together in the appearance of modesty and curtsied, half-convinced that the woman spoke prophecy. Speechless, she kept her eyes downcast until the other woman laughed.
"Are you not pleased by the thought, Arachne? Do you not desire fame?"
"My lady, I desire…" she looked up, into grey eyes that seemed to pierce her soul, and had no courage to speak madness. For madness her desires seemed in that moment, and Myrrhoe must be more than she seemed. "I desire to form the pictures I can see in my mind. Others call my cloths fair, but they do not see what I intend."
Myrrhoe smiled, her approval for the girl warmer than that she had turned on her embroidery, and something seemed changed about her face for a moment, a hint of beauty that far outstripped her previous fairness as the sun outshines a lamp. Dazzled, Arachne had never wished for anything as much as she wanted to reach out to that flawless face, to touch it with the reverence due to perfection.
Then her secret glory was hidden again, but Arachne knew from that moment that the woman was not merely mortal. Her heart was wrung with fear and loss: for surely even the fairest nymphs never looked thus, and she faced a goddess. What goddess would suffer the touch of a poor weaver-girl, with nothing but the imperfect skill of her hands to commend her?
Her glimpse of divinity tangled her in feelings as supple and complex as the dance of warp and weft upon her loom. As Myrrhoe fingered the cloth again, Arachne could almost persuade herself she felt that caress on her limbs and she shivered.
Dizzy with heat and shame and longing, she thought O Myrrhoe, I am thread in the hands of the Moirai, and the pattern they make of my life changes around you…
When the other woman looked at her, she forced herself to attend, and ignore the clamour of her pulse and breath and mind.
"Your eyes falter, not your hands: you have not learned to see truly yet. It will come with time. Look; the pattern here," Myrrhoe traced a blossom outline, "This is pretty, but it has no life. If you use more shades, blend one into the next - may I show you?"
Myrrhoe arched her brows as she waited, and Arachne's lingering flush deepened to the crimson of the skies before the white light of sunrise.
"Oh, yes, please," she stammered, and when Myrrhoe reached to pick up the shuttle, she stooped breathlessly and snatched it up. Presenting it to the goddess, she felt the unfamiliar ache within her intensify at the smile of thanks given to her.
Myrrhoe's fingers flew, and Arachne, usually so eager to improve her craft, heard her voice and not her words; studied her fingers, her face and form, and heeded none of the lesson. Barely even seeing the rows the woman added to her own, she knew that she would finish this length of cloth and use it herself: fashion it into a peplos or a blanket for her bed, and enfold her body in a chaste cloth embrace that would remind her of Myrrhoe.
Of the goddess, she reminded herself, and wondered dreamily which goddess Myrrhoe was: she did not care, while she was here.
The minutes seemed long; heat-soaked fragments of eternity spaced by Myrrhoe's melodic voice, and her movements as she worked. Arachne dimly considered that perhaps time had stopped and hoped it was true; knew it wasn't, and that she must explain her immodest heart soon. She must speak or be left with the bittersweet recollection of just one afternoon, a memory of her propriety that would pain her for as long as the memory of Myrrhoe's face stayed fresh in her thoughts.
It took most of her courage to stand beside Myrrhoe, waiting for her attention, aware of what she intended to do. Myrrhoe finished the row before she returned a reserved gaze on her and Arachne timidly reached out, seeing her own skin surprisingly tanned against the marble-pale hand below hers.
"My lady - Myrrhoe. Myrrhoe, what is it you desire?"
Myrrhoe considered before she smiled, a hesitation so slight it would have passed unremarked during idle chatter.
"To help you achieve your dreams."
"And for yourself?"
Despite her composure, there was a change in Myrrhoe's manner, a hint of silver in her grey eyes, the promise of divinity behind the human semblance.
"Recognition."
With the tranquillity of truth, Arachne said, "My lady, you have it. Is there nothing else I may offer you?"
The mortal girl lifted her hand towards Myrrhoe's cheek but dared not complete the gesture, fingers trembling in the air; she was abashed and then afraid before the aloofness in the other's eyes, and could no longer meet her gaze.
Her face was stained by her hot blood; Arachne unconsciously twisted her fingers in the loose waves of hair that fell over her shoulders.
Myrrhoe's mild laughter made her lift her head in surprise.
"A weaver indeed, but you might do better to practise with wool rather than your own tresses!"
Arachne blushed even darker at the mellow teasing.
"Let me pin up your hair; you will feel cooler."
Wide-eyed, Arachne nodded.
"Thank you," she said, her voice hoarse, scraping through her dry throat.
Gentle but efficient fingers pulled a comb through her hair, and Arachne closed her eyes and wished it would take forever, her senses alert as Myrrhoe plaited her hair and coiled it on top of her head. Her bare neck felt cool and vulnerable, and she lightly bit her bottom lip to suppress a gasp when Myrrhoe's fingers brushed her skin as she caught up a few stray strands and tucked them in. Teeth still indenting her lip, she found it hard to breathe, shallow quick panting that that seemed loud to her own ears, and she considered with heady amusement that this was permissible: perfectly proper.
Women arranged each other's hair all the time. Several maidens had brushed her hair before and it had never changed her heartbeat, yet…this was allowed. Anything else she might do now was not, but she would risk it if she had a word of encouragement, one meaningful glance, just a single sign that Myrrhoe would welcome her attentions.
She guessed that Myrrhoe's offer of hairdressing had been made to deflect any further questions, yet it could be safely returned.
"The air is quite close," she said carefully. "Shall I bind your hair up too?"
Was that surprise she saw in those guarded eyes? If so, it vanished swiftly.
"That would be kind, Arachne, thank you."
Faintly proud of her own cunning, she waited while Myrrhoe took her place on the stool, then slid the teeth of the comb slowly through her tangleless locks, far softer than her own hair, softer than flower petals, softer than anything she had ever felt. Entranced, she combed it until she saw Myrrhoe had become uncomfortable: her back and shoulders were straight and stiff.
It was hard to resist the weight of the thick mane slipping through her fingers, cool and supple, the finest threads she had ever worked with, and she wove Myrrhoe's long curls into an elaborate coronet, humming under her breath.
Bending towards Myrrhoe's ear, she murmured, "Done," close enough that her breath must have brushed her skin, and would have presumed further if she had not seen how tightly her fingers were interwoven, knotted in her lap. Arachne stepped back, to allow Myrrhoe freedom from her rigid stillness.
It was clear to Arachne, with a sudden brilliance like stepping from the shady house into the direct sunshine of the courtyard, that Myrrhoe was not sure of herself. Newly convinced that her coldness was not fixed in her heart, that she could be thawed, Arachne touched her closed hands and they loosened. Unruffled by Myrrhoe's hard stare, she drew the taller woman to her feet, and looked up into her face.
"Myrrhoe."
It was a question and a statement in one, and Myrrhoe stood as though she had frozen solid, an ice maiden in truth. Arachne released her hands and cupped her face, waiting in searching silence before she leaned in towards her. Myrrhoe tasted like nothing she could name: something fresh and pure, like...wind and starlight and silver. Passive for only a moment, Myrrhoe chose, and returned the kiss with enough feeling that it took a moment for Arachne to notice the light was strangely bright through her closed eyelids, and longer for her to care. When she opened her eyes, she broke the kiss and gasped, basking in the soft bright light: the façade had fallen, and the goddess was glowing, skin lit from within, shining like mother-of-pearl.
Laughing in a breathless burst, Arachne was grateful for Myrrhoe's firm grip on her arms; she was shaking and her legs were reluctant to hold her weight.
"You're beautiful," she said inadequately, not really speaking to the vision before her: she marvelled over her as if she were a work of art.
Her goddess had cooler skin that she did, a refreshing shock wherever they touched, but it was her face that made her so far from human and transfixed Arachne. She was not merely graced with ageless beauty but a fierce intelligence, and her features were stamped with authority to a degree that Arachne had never seen before on a female face.
The goddess bent her head and kissed her again, and Arachne clung to her helplessly, almost afraid of the force of the feelings welling up in her. Some quality in her touch betrayed Myrrhoe's immortal origins, as though the radiance was more than light; a tangible show of her power, of divinity, and Arachne was bathed in her essence, suffused with the light of godhood - gifted, gilded with a little of that perfection. She was raised from her humble status to something purer, more worthy of a goddess's lover.
Only when she closed her eyes, overwhelmed, could her desire become more urgent than her awe, and she pressed disbelievingly close, trying to kiss and speak, want and worship all at once. All she could manage was to babble, "Myrrhoe, my Myrrhoe," and then she was left blinking in the dimness as the light extinguished and Myrrhoe let her go.
Confused but already beset with terrible loss, Arachne cried out, the swift tears not obscuring her sight so much that they hid the other woman's face from her. The disguise was back in place, and Myrrhoe looked irrevocably stern.
"Forgive me. I meant no offence," Arachne sobbed, kneeling at the goddess's feet and reaching out to clasp her knees as a tear-stained supplicant. Myrrhoe moved out of range with martial grace, and the only passion in her gaze was hostility.
"My lady, you are not so cruel - please, forgive me. Don't look at me so harshly!"
The goddess had more control over her voice than her eyes: her voice was merely cool.
"Foolish girl. What mercy are you worth? I revealed my self to you, I honoured you with my true face, and you failed to appreciate it! Which goddess is called Myrrhoe?"
So deeply betrayed that she lacked words, Arachne could only stare pleadingly through her tears, hands and face beseeching where her voice failed her, and she thought the goddess softened for a moment. Then she left, with such speed and suddenness that Arachne never had the chance to speak, and was left crying. She sat on the floor, face pressed to the cloth still stretched on the loom, tears falling where the goddess's hands had touched the wool.
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The longing did not leave her. Nor did the sorrow, but the desire was worse, unassuageable craving for a glance from grey eyes, for her mellow voice and elegant speech, for that blinding loveliness that no human could hope to match and which she might waste away for the lack of.
As the days turned into weeks which slowly faded into months, Arachne began to feel angry instead of alone. A goddess should not be a coward, should not lie, and use hurt pride and pettiness as an excuse to hide from unaccustomed feelings, no matter how unusual and alien they were to her.
She immersed herself in her craft, and her weaving improved almost by the day, so determined was she to better her abilities, to become perfect. Her memories of the goddess's face did not blur, and she had the image fixed in her mind, a standard to aspire to - a vision she wanted to be able to recreate.
She thought about the identity of the goddess, toyed with the idea of minor divinities: Klotes, a goddess of spinning, or the weaver Lina, who used flax to make her fabric, but she knew who the grey-eyed goddess must be, and it made her heart harder. Pallas Athena was renowned as the wisest of goddesses, most temperate and reasonable: how could she act with so little perception?
Meanwhile, Arachne's name spread across all of Maeonia for her skill at the loom, and the local women clustered at her house daily to watch her work, even if she was only spinning or dying the wool in preparation for her cloths.
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Arachne was far more interested in producing the most even thread possible from her spinning than she was in the discourse around her, but the name Pallas captured her interest instantly, and she lifted her head. Euippe, one of the nymphs from Tmolus, was staring with chagrined admiration at the depiction of galloping horses that Arachne had been stitching earlier.
"Inspired by Pallas," the nymph repeated to herself, sighing.
Arachne said nothing. She returned her attention to her spindle, and her eyes flashed as she dwelt for a moment on the unwitting truth behind Euippe's words.
"Or taught by her?" a matron demurred. "Arachne must have learned from an excellent teacher."
"I have learned from many people," Arachne said tactfully, not looking up. "But I owe the goddess of weaving only as much as each of you does."
She owed Pallas many things, she knew, but they had nothing to do with the goddess's patronage of feminine duties. Her mind was filled for a moment with Myrrhoe's face, her touch, and when Arachne returned to the present she found a stranger was lecturing her. The newcomer seemed to be championing Pallas Athena, and accusing Arachne herself of claiming to be the goddess's equal.
Briefly she wondered how anyone could wring that interpretation from her words, and then the woman stopped speaking and met Arachne's irritated stare. Silver threaded her hair and she clasped a wooden staff, but Arachne doubted her infirmity, staring into familiar grey eyes. Triumph and temper mingled in her, and her complex anger won. Laying aside her work, she rose and walked over to confront the woman, wrathfully amused at the goddess's vanity that had not allowed her to change the rare shade of her eyes.
"Your long life has warped your sensitivity," she accused boldly, selecting her words with all the care she would devote to picking the precise shade necessary for her embroidery. "Save your wisdom for your own daughters - should you have any! I need no advice from you; I know my own heart. If Pallas is threatened by my skill, she knows where to find me. Let her come and prove herself, if she dares - should I lose, I am hers to command."
"Your words carry the taint of hubris," the elderly woman warned. "Request Athena's forgiveness, and she may still overlook your folly."
"I say that if she is offended by my words, then she is afraid that I will best her. I call upon Pallas Athena to show herself my better," Arachne said.
Grey eyes blazed, reflected the light, silver as the sea, and the goddess shed her disguise.
"Pallas Athena accepts your challenge!"
Arachne was deaf to the terrified clamour behind her as her admirers sought to distance themselves from her, several of them both kneeling piously and holding on to each other in fear. Arachne scarcely bent her head, unable to bear losing sight of the goddess for more than a moment, heedless of her apparent disrespect.
"My lady Pallas," she said, a feverish colour spreading across her cheeks.
"Are you resolved upon your foolish contest, mortal?"
Few people would have dared to meet that bitter gaze, merciless as an Erinys, but Arachne had waited too long to see her again and stared back. The promise of hot fury lay not far behind Athena's frosty façade, and she was glad to see it: only indifference would have been beyond bearing, and even hostility showed some spark of Myrrhoe still present in Pallas. Warmth suffused her body, and she found hatred in her heart for her companions, whose presence kept her from speaking her mind.
She could not lift her voice above a whisper.
"If it is the only way to gain your attention, my lady, then yes. I am ready."
"As you wish."
She gestured for Athena to accompany her into the house, and they started to set up the loom in silence. Arachne's companions, subdued but determined not to miss anything, crept in after them and sat back against the walls out of their way.
Both worked quickly, heedless of the passing of time or the effort of their labours, bright pictures taking shape before the enthralled witnesses. Long before they finished, it was clear that each tapestry was a marvel of craftsmanship, beauty, and propaganda. The myths portrayed were well-known to the watchers, all figures were recognisable portraits, and their messages were not hard to read.
The central scene Pallas portrayed was her victory over Poseidon, to name the city of Cecrops after herself. A miniature scene in each corner showed other contests in which mortals had pitted themselves against divinities, and each had been harshly punished for their failure. The cloth was edged in a border of olive boughs: Athena's symbol of peace.
Arachne wove many scenes of the gods seducing mortal women: contests of another kind, in which the deities were as successful as in Athena's representations. In each scene, a god took on a shape not his own, to deceive and win over the coveted maiden. The tapestry was edged with flowers woven into a garland of ivy, the vine worn by wild maenads in their wanton frenzy.
Finally stepping away from the loom, the girl rubbed her aching arms, and watched Pallas from under her eyelashes. The goddess seemed unwearied, and her fair hair gleamed, making Arachne herself seemed rumpled beside her. The mortal gazed upon Athena's hanging, and her skin paled as she knew her peril at last: her work was no less fair than the goddess's, and Pallas would not forgive that easily. Clasping her hands tightly, she turned to look at the deity.
Pallas might have been a perfect ivory statue as she studied Arachne's cloth: no sound or movement betrayed the slightest flicker of life before she made her judgement. Bright colour burned on her cheeks, and Arachne faltered and shrank back as the goddess lashed out, rending Arachne's tapestry into shreds, her outraged expression more terrible than her violence.
Those of the nymphs and village maidens who had not already slipped out unnoticed fled before the storm of slighted divinity.
"I meant no offence," Arachne whispered, the folds of her peplos crushed in her fists. "My lady, I concede the contest. You may do as you wish with me."
Pallas Athena lifted one pale hand, and stared at the shuttle still clasped in it, as if it were something she had never seen before.
"You may not speak. You dared to degrade my kin!"
She made a slight, scornful gesture towards the ripped scraps of embroidery on the floor.
Arachne blinked hard, unwilling to shed tears before the goddess. Lacking any chance of winning a reprieve, with Myrrhoe's warm regard as far out of her reach as the stars, she clung to her ragged dignity as the only thing she had not lost.
"Mockery and spite fill your heart, mortal."
Heartsick, lacking even conviction that the goddess's disgust was undeserved, Arachne sank to her knees and lifted her hands, entreating for the chance to defend herself.
"My lady, you showed me your light when we last met, then left me alone in the dark. You-"
Pallas Athena raised the shuttle and struck Arachne's forehead, shocking her into silence. The girl began to raise her hand to protect her face, and Athena smote her again. Arachne gasped, staring at Pallas wordlessly, tears painting her face, glittering in the glow the goddess cast, and when she reached out to touch the goddess's knees in supplication, Athena struck her a third time.
Self-restraint was the quality that marked Pallas out from the other divinities. Arachne knew that if she had driven the goddess to such extreme ill-feeling that she would pay for today with her life; by death or by some transformation, akin to those people metamorphosed into birds and mountains, now immortalised on Athena's tapestry. Athena was known to be slow to kill, even to defend her modesty and honour; and Arachne found the thought of living, enduring the lust for perfection that her first glimpse of divinity had left her with, was more than she cared to endure. If Pallas wished to punish her for hubris, it must erase some of her shame to end her own life. She was beyond help, but it might ease the shame she cast on her father if she went to dwell with Hades, rather than being reshaped into a warning to small children everywhere not to provoke the gods.
Untying her girdle, Arachne scrambled up and stood on a stool, fumbling to create a noose before Athena took her fate out of her hands. Athena crossed the room swiftly, as she slipped the noose around her throat and pulled it tight, and the goddess's mien was perturbed. Halting her attempt to hang herself, Athena looked at her with a frown.
"You may not die, Arachne. You ceded your life to me; I will let you keep it, but not as you are now. You are the finest weaver of all the maidens in the world, but now you shall be a finer weaver still, and so shall all your descendants after you."
Arachne's hands trembled, and her voice failed her. Mouthing soundless prayers, she found desperate courage, and touched the goddess, her own hand nearly as cool as Athena's this time. The goddess did not resist or move away, but her distant expression remained unbroken, and Arachne's breath turned into a sob. Head bowed, she waited for her metamorphosis.
Pallas sprinkled the girl with a potion distilled from Hecate's herbs, a trace of sorrow softening her face as the alterations grew more marked, and Arachne's body shrank and changed. The goddess lifted her hand, regretful fingertips brushing empty space as Arachne shed all of her hair and her skin darkened. As she swung and dropped on the finest thread imaginable, Athena bent and caught her before she reached the floor. Regarding the spider on her palm with an enigmatic expression, the deity walked to the door and held her out to let her crawl onto the wall.
"Spin, Arachne: weave death shrouds for your prey. Your tapestries shall be nets for insects now, not a goddess."
The grey spider began to create her first cobweb as Pallas Athena departed, leaving the room a little dimmer.