“E.” Narcissus snapped his fingers. “Get over here.”
For a second, I thought he meant Elise. Then a beautiful woman with wide, intelligent eyes hurried across the auditorium after Narcissus, dodging tables and lingering models with a nymph like grace. “E” whipped out a tablet and held a pen at the ready.
Narcissus looked me over. “Is she with you, Donnie?”
Was I? I raised an eyebrow and looked to Adonis.
He glanced between me and Elise then let out a long-suffering sigh. “Yeah,” he decided. “She’s with me.”
“With you?” Elise sputtered. “What do you mean with you?”
“Can we talk about this later?” Adonis asked in an undertone.
“Um. No.” Elise’s gold eyes flared and she drew her hands to her hips. “Narcissus, I apologize for being so unprofessional, but we were actually talking when you—”
“It’s fine.” Narcissus said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “You two can go.”
“You ever consider a career in modeling?” Narcissus asked, oblivious to the drama playing out between the two models. “Your kind needs all the exposure you can get, right?”
“Um…” My kind, huh? Modeling wasn’t an uncommon cover career for a god struggling to find worship. We needed the exposure, and we couldn’t lie, which made pursuing acting or most other careers that threw you into the limelight difficult.
But I had charm. I could get all the worship I needed by walking through a crowded room.
“Aw, come on. A pretty girl like you?” Narcissus raised his eyebrows at me. “Sure you have. E, draw up the paperwork.”
“Draw up the paperwork?” She at least noticed I hadn’t agreed.  Her eyes darted up from her tablet every so often as if she were trying not to look occupied by something on her screen. Was she playing a game? Why bother hiding it? Throughout this entire conversation Narcissus hadn’t so much as looked at her.

~@~

So don’t ask me why, I don’t know, but when I sat down to write Narcissus as a character (he runs Adonis’ modeling agency in Venus and Adonis) that is who I pictured. Outfit and all. I don’t question my muse, I just go with it 🙂

Narcissus was an exceptionally good-looking demigod, the son of a river god and a nymph, and his pride and arrogance attracted the attention of the goddess Nemesis. She lured him to a pond where he could see his own reflection, and the arrogant fool fell in love with it. Narcissus wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t drink, wouldn’t leave because he was so enraptured with his reflection (most sources do agree he wasn’t aware it was a reflection, he just figured it was another person staring back at him), so he died. Which I have to say does show commitment. Think about it, as he wasted away, his reflection surely got less pretty, so maybe it wasn’t all about looks?

He was turned into the Narcissus plant, which looks like a small white daffodil. They lean over water in such a way that it looks like they are looking at their reflection.

However, in some versions of the myth, Nemesis didn’t just randomly lure him to the reflection, but was in fact punishing him for his rejection of the nymph Echo.

Echo was a chatty nymph that managed to piss off Hera enough that she was cursed to only repeat what was said to her. How did she piss her off? She either slept with Zeus or distracted Hera while Zeus slept around. At first, I figured this was Hera being Hera and taking out her anger at Zeus on other people.

Then I really researched the rest of this myth, not just the version I heard in high school. It goes a little something like this:

Echo saw Narcissus hunting one day and fell head over heels in love with the man based on nothing but a glimpse. When Narcissus became aware he was being followed, he shouted “Who’s there?”

Rewinding for a second to point out that rather than walk up to a hunter, she chose to stalk him through the woods. Granted, that behavior is typical in nymphs, but still.

Because of Hera’s curse, all Echo could do was repeat “Who’s there?”

Intrigued, Narcissus followed the voice and said, “Let us meet together.”

Ecstatic with joy, Echo replied “Let us meet!” and showed herself.

Unfortunately, Narcissus was unimpressed with the, by all accounts, beautiful nymph. Perhaps it was because she was so terrible at reading body language, because she tried to embrace Narcissus so much he ran away.

From a nymph.

I’m not exactly sure *how* she embraced him, or how clear Narcissus made it that he wasn’t interested, but the demigod felt upset enough by Echo’s attack to yell  “May I die before what’s mine is yours.” And really, that seems a bit harsh coming from someone who was fine meeting and chatting two seconds ago.

“What’s mine is yours,” Echo sadly replied, still not taking the hint. Echo stalked Narcissus and repeated any words of love he said to another (including his reflection) until all that was left of her was her voice.

Let’s unpack that a bit. Narcissus was open to meeting, but did not return her affection. Her response was to stalk him and take comfort in kind things he said to other people by pretending they were about her. That’s…I mean that’s the modern day equivalent of cutting your crush’s girlfriend’s head out of pictures with the two of them and pasting in your own. Add the self harm into that (she literally wasted away into nothingness) and you’ve got a bit of a nightmarish picture.

Her voice survived, and according to Greek mythology she’s still around. Whenever you hear an echo, it’s her. Stalking you. Because she still has no life.

Darwinism at its finest.

The doorbell rang, and since no one else moved to get it, I turned and pulled the door open. A man wearing a black leather jacket stood on the porch.

Not just any man. Tall. Dark. Handsome. And a god. Nice. I stood speechless, captivated by his fiery eyes. He seemed equally stunned and let out a low whistle.

“Got to say,” he murmured in a voice almost too low to hear. “I’m liking the newer models.”

“And just who the hell are you?”

He shot me a rakish grin. “Ares.”

God of war. Bloodshed, screams, battle cries. People dying by the thousands. A wooden horse. Fire. Blackened bodies. Sick and wounded soldiers with melting faces. The images came too fast. Too overwhelming. I tore my gaze away from him and stepped back, stumbling in my haste. He stepped forward and grabbed my arm, steadying me.

“That was stupid of me, I’m sorry.” He sounded like he meant it. “It’s been a long time since I’ve met a new deity. I should have let you guess.”

“Everything all right here?” Adonis’ voice came from somewhere over my left shoulder.

“And if it wasn’t? What would you do about it, half breed?” When Adonis didn’t reply, Ares smirked. “Yeah, I thought so.”

He moved past me and stalked into the room. Everyone fell silent. I stood, staring at the open door, too stunned to turn and investigate the silence behind me. All those dying people . . .

Adonis moved between me and the door, breaking my gaze. He studied my face. “Hey, what happened?”

Behind me, Ares and Athena started arguing. I couldn’t focus on the words. I just kept seeing the bodies, the blood, and the death.

“Aphrodite?”

I shook my head to clear it. What was I doing standing here in shock over the death of a few . . . million . . . humans? Humans died, it happened. War was great for gods. There’s no beating wartime worship. Fear and desperation gave it a potency that was hard to replicate in the day to day goings on of the typical human life.

But their faces . . .

“Aphrodite?” Adonis touched my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

I pulled away from him, temper flaring. “What do you care?”

Spinning on my heel, I stalked off. Stupid humans and their stupid wars and their stupid lies and fake concern. And stupid me, for giving a damn about any of them.

~@~

I’m moving on from the mythology I researched for the Persephone trilogy for just a bit because I’ve been doing a ton of research for the next trilogy and I’m just so excited about everything I’m learning that I can’t wait to share it.

So in my writing, Ares just made his first appearance in Aphrodite’s trilogy and I got stuck. I had a firm grip on him when I wrote his character in the third Persephone book, but Aphrodite’s books are full of cocky, arrogant, pretty boys with hearts of gold, and I needed something to keep Ares from blending in.

So I re-read the scenes with him in Iron Queen, and looked over all my research to see if I could find his character again. At some point, I really need to do a short story about the road trip Aphrodite, Ares, and Hephaestus went on at the end of book three.

Anyway, when it comes to mythology, there is surprisingly little on Ares. He’s mentioned in a ton of myths, but he doesn’t star in many. He’s just always there, on the periphery, throwing a temper tantrum.

Ares is one of the few children born to Zeus AND Hera. Well, actually Ovid said he was conceived when Hera touched a flower, but he’s largely ignored on that point. He’s the god of war, but he’s not the ONLY god of War. His sister, Athena is a goddess of war, but she’s more about wisdom and battle strategy. His other sister, Eris invokes war, calls it into being, and Zeus was actually a god of war to the extent that he directed it’s course. Ares wasn’t THE god of war, he was the god of the love of war. The brutality of battle, the primal rage that fuels the fire. He’s never cared who was fighting who, and rarely took sides. He’d go back and forth for fun.

He loves the fight.

But when it comes to actually fighting, he kind of sucks. There’s very few myths that actually feature him winning. During the Gigantomachy, Ares was imprisoned in an bronze jar for thirteen months by the giants Otis and Ephialtes. Hermes found out and told Artemis who pulled off the earliest version of the “hey boys, look at me,” trick, and distracted the giants by offering herself to one of the brothers. The other got jealous, and the two fought and killed each other while Artemis helped Ares escape.

He fought with Athena, a lot. And lost. A lot. She wounded him with a spear during the Trojan War, then threw a boulder at him, then struck him with a sword later just for kicks.

Zeus hated him, but in my book that’s a badge of honor. Zeus seriously insulted him in the Iliad, saying:
“Then looking at him darkly Zeus who gathers the clouds spoke to him:
‘Do not sit beside me and whine, you double-faced liar.
To me you are the most hateful of all gods who hold Olympos.
Forever quarrelling is dear to your heart, wars and battles.”

Ares slept around, a lot, but there’s no accounts (I can find) that he was violent about it. His Roman equivalent possibly raped Rhea Silvus as she slept, impregnating her with the founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus. But according to Livy she was raped by an unknown man, but “declared Mars to be the father of her illegitimate offspring, either because she really imagined it to be the case, or because it was less discreditable to have committed such an offense with a god.” The reason I’m inclined to agree with Livy, is because it is so out of character for Ares to rape. He killed rapists. When one of Poseidon’s sons attempted to rape one of Ares’ daughters, Ares killed him. Violently.

He loved Aphrodite, and by all accounts, actually loved her, not just…well, you know. He and Aphrodite get a bad rep for their affair, but here’s the thing. Ares and Aphrodite were already an item when Aphrodite was given to Hephaestus as a prize/blackmail reward. But more on that later. Once, while Ares and Aphrodite were having sex in one of Hephaestus’ temples, they were spotted by the sun god, Helios and ratted them out. Hephaestus trapped the two in a net, and the two naked gods were put on display for the rest of the gods to see. The two were super embarrassed, and Ares’ son who was supposed to be playing look-out got turned into a rooster. Cause you know, roosters always announce the sun’s arrival. Haha.

He’s been a very fun character to write.

“How will I know who’s a demigod?”

“By sight. Halflings have ichor running through their veins.” When I looked at him blankly, he sighed. “The golden blood of the gods?”

“I have gold blood?” I asked incredulously. At this point, why not, I thought ruefully. Hell, I can probably fly.

“Not in color,” Hades clarified. “In essence. Though it does affect their appearance.”

“How?”

“They look gold.” At my disbelieving look he sighed again. I thought about offering him an inhaler, but he continued. “Gold hair, skin, eyes—they practically glow. Surely you’ve met a demigod, either here or on the surface. It’s a useful marker we decided on long ago. Accidentally killing or cursing another god’s child is rife with political complications.”

~@~

Ichor is the golden blood of the gods and is deadly to humans. The blood is enhanced by the divine diet of nectar and ambrosia. Actually, it’s been hinted at that the gods are immortal because they only eat and drink nectar and ambrosia. As in if they would become mortal if they ate human food. Food is often binding in mythology. Mortal food makes souls mortal. Food from the Underworld makes souls, living or dead, bound to that realm. I didn’t stick to that line of logic in my story. Persephone eats both the food of mortals and the food of the Underworld with no ill effects.

There’s an interesting myth about a man named Talos who was created either Daedalus or Hephaestus with single vein of ichor nailed to his spine in such a way that it was stopped up from entering the rest of his body. Oh, and his body was made of bronze and had wings. The ichor made him super strong so he could protect Europa and her island.

When the Argonauts sailed past Talus threw rocks at them to protect his island. Medea either convinced him to remove the nail holding the ichor contained within his body, or removed it herself, releasing the ichor and killing Talus.

In my books, Ichor is responsible for giving demigods their golden coloring. It’s also the source of the gods divinity and power. Ichor is going to have a pretty important role in the next trilogy, I’d tell you more, but you know… spoilers.

Once upon a time, there was a woman made of stone. She was beautiful and perfect and strong. Until one day, she was found by a lonely man who could not find a woman to love him.

Blind to her beauty, Pygmalion took a chisel to her and reshaped her to better fit his desires. Though her flesh softened and her shape changed, she remained strong and unchanged within.

Frustrated, the man appealed to the gods. “The women of Cyprus are all poor and whores and unsuited to a man of my station. Breathe life into this stone, and I shall build a great temple in your honor.”

“The city of Cyprus is filled with women made of flesh and bone,” The goddess of wisdom reasoned. “Perhaps the problem does not lie with them.”

“Do not blame the prey when you are not worthy of the hunt,” said Artemis.

“Never.” Ares’s eyes glittered with disdain.

“Build me a temple that touches the sky and the woman is yours,” decreed the God-King.

Pygmalion agreed and when the last stone of the temple was set into place, Zeus breathed life into the statue, hollowing out her insides, removing every trace of who she once was and replacing her very essence with what Pygmalion wished her to be.

According to the myth, she was beautiful, dedicated, and obedient to her husband’s every whim. The perfect wife.

But I know better than anyone that perfection has a price.

~@~

I’m going to be honest, I *hate* this myth. I hate the message it sends. I hate that it’s so popular. Everything about this myth makes me feel kind of sick. So be warned, my distaste WILL be reflected in my tone. But it’s important in my next book. So…mine it for spoilers.

Pygmalion was a skilled sculptor who grew tired of he local prostitutes (technically these women pissed off Aphrodite, so she cursed them into prostitution). Apparently every woman he met, ever, was unworthy of his love, so he made one of his own. He carved a beautiful, pure, clean woman, and fell in love with it.

Like, really in love with it.

At Venus’ next festival, Pygmalion made a sacrifice on the alter and prayed for a girl who was like his statue. He later returned home, began to make out with his statue, and noticed its lips were warm.

Let’s pause there for a minute. Pygmalion did not go home assuming his statue would be alive. He didn’t check it for a pulse or anything. He didn’t even ask Aphrodite to bring his statue to life. He asked for a girl *like* his statue to appear on his doorstep (where he likely would declare she was unworthy, slam the door, and start a war of epic proportions). The idea that his statue could come to life had not actually occurred to him before he started making out with it.

Take from that what you will.

Anyhow, the statue comes to life and Pygmlion names it Galatea, or Galathea, or Elise. That last name you may want to remember when you read Venus and Adonis. Just sayin.

They get married and have a daughter named Paphos, who had the Island of Paphos named for her, near the rock of Aphrodite (where Aphrodite was born). They also had another daughter named Metharme who married King Cinryas, who had a daughter named Myrrah, who slept with her father and had a child named Adonis. More on him next week.

As much as I hate this myth, it’s become a major part of Aphrodite’s trilogy.  My favorite part of studying mythology is seeing where the myths intersect. They’re all connected, which makes my job of rewriting them a lot more fun.