The Claiming of the Children (The Veil of Death) (2 page)

“Athena needs your protection.” Eurynome whispered to Athena’s mother; the Keeper of Wisdom and sent it rippling throughout the Universe.

And when Eurynome had passed between two of the twelve golden eagle statues circling the floor’s centre, she stood upon the raised edging of lightning and oak leaf that circled the portal: The viewpoint over Earth.

∞

Athena stood motionless: The costume that had been of such lightness and breathability was now an unbearable heaviness. She tried to transform out of it but discovered that she could not.

Pain consumed her as the vessel of the human body tightened and set around her immortal life-force. She fell onto the grass of the meadow and tried to cast out the pain that seared within her body.

But every time Athena cried out, the pain did not lessen.

She crawled upon hands and knees and sought cover within the tallness of the grass.

Athena had realised that there was nothing she could do but wait until she could withstand this construction that she had become imprisoned within.

An oak tree shaded Athena’s body when the Sun’s rays were at their hottest.

The blades of grass became softer so that her skin would feel only the gentleness of velvet.

The wild flowers interwove their stems with the petals to a degree of thickness that cushioned her naked body.

The days and nights ebbed and flowed.

Then… when the pain finally reached a level of tolerance that she could live with, Athena uncurled her body, used the oak tree to support her as she stood to look at the environment that was alien to her.

She glanced at the trees, grass and flowers.

And then when she sighted a stream flowing nearby, she walked toward it - and continued to do so until the body that she was encased within, was waist deep within the clear and trickling waters of the stream.

Her bare feet stood upon a substance that felt sticky and yet smooth.

The reeds and roots growing on the river bed tickling her feet, ankles and toes.

Athena stared back at her reflection and realised that her appearance was that of the human body she had transformed into, before attending Hera’s party.

But whereas that had been but a costume, this was of flesh, tissue, muscle, bone and blood and she could not sight the colours of her life-force within this human body… this body that was by far more than just a party dress.

Athena peered closer at the surface of the water and stared deep into her eyes. “There I am,” she said when sighting the trickling of white light within the depths of greys and blues.

A thunder storm lit up the sky.

Her body jumped at the sudden noise and she became all too aware at how vulnerable this new body of hers was against the creator who had created it; Mother Earth.

Looking up toward the sky, she discovered that it was the energies of her mother’s Wisdom that was creating the thunder storm and not that of Mother Earth.

Sadness consumed Athena at the knowledge that when this body of hers was to die and she entered into her second mortal lifetime, all memories of the Universe and her mother would be forgotten.

Despair replaced her sadness and it cut deep into the depths of her inner turmoil. Loneliness stung the freshly made cuts as realisation flooded into her;
I will no more remember my own existence. Who I am… from where I come from? Memories travel not the cycle of Earth’s reincarnation.

Athena made her way out of the stream and sat down upon the bank. Putting her head into her hands, she wept at what Hera had done.

“You have brought about the extinction of thy true Self.”

A bolt of thunder crashed over the meadow.

Athena looked up once more to sight her mother and when she did a trickling of silvery-white light surrounded her body and as quickly as the light arrived, it vanished.

Calmness returned to the sky.

Athena stood and stared down at her body for it was protected within a suit of armour forged from her mother’s Wisdom.

She closed her eyes and stood quietly for many mortal minutes, thinking as to what she should do.

Opening her eyes, she walked over toward the area of the meadow where she knew the illusion of the party existed - but with mortal eyes, she saw it no more.

“Soar out from your costumes of dress!” She shouted out to all those she knew to be within Hera’s party. “It is a trap to bind you to mortality and attach you to Mother Earth!”

But her attempt at trying to be heard, seen or felt was met only with failure.

Eventually, she turned and walked out of the meadow and travelled the Earth far and wide, seeking an answer as to how she could undo what Hera had done. But wherever Athena travelled, she realised that the mortals either feared her or idolised her.

She became known as; ‘the woman who wore the Armour of Divine Protection, whose stature of height no man or woman could equal. Athena, the woman who would not be possessed, controlled or captured by any other person.’

“I am the power-force of Wisdom and I come from the Universe,” Athena would tell the mortals who tried to capture her. “Let it be written that it is Earth who has claimed me, not any one of her creatures.”

The mortals who feared her tried to silence her - but no spear; knife or weapon of their time could pierce into her human body.

And those who possessed the knowledge of the potions never used it to kill her because they stood in support of this fearless creature; this woman called Athena.

∞

Eurynome observed Athena’s first mortal lifetime all within a blink of an eye.

She looked at Athena’s dead body and waited for her life-force to arise out of it.

Zeus who was still unable to move away from the window called out to Eurynome. “Does my daughter live within her first mortal life?”

“She has lived it.” She answered him with sadness. “The power-force of Wisdom walks now upon the Earth.”

Zeus collected up the last of his daughter’s stardust and raced over to the portal. “In what creature does she live out her second mortal life?”

Eurynome shook her head. “I have yet to see her life-force rise up.”

“Thank the stars.” He whispered, “My daughter’s attachment to the Earth can be severed with the unity of her stardust.”

They stood and waited for Athena’s life-force to appear.

“There she is!” Zeus called out at the sighting of his daughter’s energies but within a blinking of an eye, she vanished?

Athena had not risen, soared or danced as Zeus and Eurynome had expected - but hurtled out with such velocity and was caught up within a maelstrom of noise, light, colours and energies of Earth’s reincarnation.

Zeus tightened his grip around the small silver cup and searched every mortal being, “She is somewhere… someone?”

But Zeus could not see her… find her.

“Where is my daughter?!” He roared out to the Realm of the Sky.

The Sky answered him back with the sounds of its own thunder and lightning.

Eurynome in the meantime had decided to search beyond the physical form of the human body. She looked instead within the auras, energies and emotions created from every object and symbol… she searched a second time… and then a third_.

But another claim rippled throughout the Universe and made itself known unto another one of Zeus’s children:

Zeus and Eurynome looked out at the Gallery of Stars and onto the constellation of Artemis.

Her stars burst and crumbled; speckles of silvery-whites, yellowy-oranges and hues of red, lit up the Universe.

Zeus rushed back to the window and collected up the falling stardust of his daughter, Artemis.

Eurynome turned now to the frozen icicles that were hovering in mid-air, “Shatter the illusion that Hera has trapped the children within.” She ordered.

One thousand frozen arrows of ice hurtled into the barrier but not a tear, dent or speck could they make.

In fact all but the intended target had been cut, sliced, beheaded; blades of grass, wild flowers, the barks of the trees and the fur and feathers of the creatures who lived within the meadow.

Eurynome gazed down onto the Earth and discovered that within her attempts at destroying Hera’s barrier, Artemis had lived some 20 mortal years and the body was upon the point of dying.

“Zeus!” she called. “Your daughter’s mortal heart beats its last beat.”

But Zeus could not move from the window until he had collected the last of Artemis’s stardust falling from the Universe.

A breath of air could be heard as it exhaled from Artemis’s mouth and realising it to be her last, Eurynome encased Artemis’s life-force to try and slow down her journey toward the cycle of Mother Earth’s reincarnation.

But the orb exploded.

Ice and water showered down and around the corpse of Artemis and Eurynome stared on in horror as she witnessed another Immortal caught up within a maelstrom of noise, light, colours and energies before vanishing into its second mortal lifetime.

Tremors rippled throughout The Gallery of Stars.

The Universe glistened and glittered with an array of silvery-white particles as the stardust of more Immortals fell down toward Mother Earth.

∞

Dionysus
:
[vii]
Dionysus was transformed into the form of the grape vine. He spent his first mortal lifetime ensuring that his harvest of grapes would be bitter and sour believing that the wine produced would not suit the taste buds of the mortals.

What party continued without the flow of wine?

But the opposite happened; the new flavour suited the palate of the humans and even when the harvest of that particular fruit wine died, the flavour did not.

∞

Apollo
:
[viii]
Apollo was transformed into musical notes; decibels and sound waves. He rippled through the mind of the mortals and inspired them to create his music that told the story of what Hera had done.

The rhythm, melody and tempo mirrored all that Apollo felt - his loss, grief and turmoil equalled that of his twin, Artemis.

But his song and its meaning were lost within the music of the mortals.

They played it when they took up ‘arms’ against their enemies - favouring the drum for it inspired into them courage when they marched upon the battle fields and the bugle, for its sound inspired remembrance on the occasions when the mortals needed to remember all those who had sacrificed their lives for the cause that they had fought for.

∞

Hermes
:
[ix]
Hermes was transformed into the mortal body of a man. But he could not cope with being bound to a creature that was unable to fly, soar or surf the element of air.

He made wings out of bird’s feathers and added them to his clothing and leapt off of the ground so that he could feel the essence of flight. But all that his cumbersome body would do was jump up only to fall back down. His actions and behaviours delighted the crowds of people who looked upon; ‘the man who believed he could fly’.

Hermes’s determination grew stronger with each failure. He climbed a structure of a great height believing that this would motivate his body into a momentum of flight. Sadly, Hermes’s final take-off was indeed his last.

∞

Persephone
:
[x]
Persephone was transformed into the mortal body of a woman.

She cast off the name, Persephone and told the mortals that, “Hera had given to her a false name and she was the power-force of Shadow and Light.” But when she tried to ‘run with Lightness’ or ‘disappear within the shadows’ her mortal body would not allow it.

And so she dedicated her first mortal lifetime travelling the Earth and healing the mortal’s mind, body and Soul from all sorts of illnesses - believing that this would bring to their world a greater understanding of the Universe.

But when she taught them; ‘The Craft of Healing’ -there were those who liked not the fact that this woman held great authority and so they condemned her works to be that of ‘great evil’ and she ‘a creature of the Devil’ for her very name ‘Persephone’ represented ‘Destructive Slayer’.

The mortals, fuelled with envy, fear and pride, hunted Persephone down and along with all of her followers, they tied them to stakes of wood and set them alight with flames of fire.

∞

Hephaestus
:
[xi]
Hephaestus was turned into a mortal man but his physical form was disfigured and misshapen to such an extent that the joints and bones screamed to him in fiery flames of pain; his face was deformed with scars, his skin mottled by angry burns. “What have you done unto me?!” Hephaestus shouted out to his mother, Hera. “Where is the share of the Victory that you promised me?!”