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A goddess sits within a silver column held dwelling, a lofty grotto that she sleeps well inside.
Her children are far and high, within the hands of the king of all the immortals, far from the depths of fallen lives.
Somewhere out there in the sea are her daughters, the monsters who eat mankind.
But dwelling down below the very entrance of a hell gods domain, was her, alone with the other chthonic immortals.
But somewhere in her waters, she stirs her hand, she teased the lip of the slow moving waters edge.
She heard the sounds of screams, the other rivers that spanned from her father that dwelled down with her.
Somehow off in their own areas of the underworld, they lived with their duties and wives, spending their days tormenting the souls who dared to drink from their hellish and often brackish waters.
Whatever they did, it was never her care, oldest out of them all, she knew well what her life would be for eternity.
But a part of her nagged at her, that ever craving for something new, wanting to know of the world again than from just a glimpse through the binds of oath.
Akheron was always the one to see the world, knowing more of the souls than any other river god.
For every soul that passed ended at his shore, past her agony and hatred filled river, to his of pain.
Just when they were given a ferry ride across, he could always hear the whispers and speak between the souls who have yet to forget their lives.
“The world changes with every death, I swear I hear them making things not even Athena could think of!”
She had heard further from Kokytus and his river of wailing, how the souls who dared to drink and bathe in his waters would cry out their woes.
“They do nothing but cry to me of their sorrows, of their pain and crimes and regrets. It's as annoying as the days passing, monotonous and benign”
But, oh Lethe and her oblivion waters, forgetful as she was, she would always say things from those who drank. Unable to remember her own words from theirs, the past melded together with the current.
“I think someone spoke of the sun? Perhaps the moon? The other day I heard someone speak of trees and meadows and cats and dogs….or was it centaurs and nymphs upon a mountain?”
Styx would wonder how such a forgetful goddess would be the barrier between gloomy Hades and the paradise of Elysium.
But perhaps forgetful oblivion was better than the fiery pits of Pyriphlegethon.
Pyriphlegethon had always been hot under the collar of his dressings, looking unwell under any questions, no matter who.
“I hear nothing but pain, the fire burns yes, but the souls seem to go on, mold themselves together into that of my lakes”
They all had something to say of mortals and their modern world, the current realm of wrathful earth, Demeter Erinys, how she had come to be by such a name the goddess often wished to have been able to see rather than hear.
She was curious, craving delight, craving adventure as they had done all her years ago to find life.
Her love has been fleeting as her emotions, love given to one only to spawn children she cared more for, but even they would leave her one day and she would give up her role as their mother from then on.
She had even grown to endure that feeling again, once for the horror that was Ekhidna, and once again for dread Persephone.
But of course it was all as fleeting as the rapid times, as the river flow, from one to another and back again, and endless loop around the earth.
But yet she craved it again, that familiar feeling of creativity and freedom, so far from fleeting emotions she once had as a youthful goddess.
She craved that endless craze so many claimed to have once had.
But she knew it was almost pointless to try, for her job could not be left behind.
Once she had her gifted title of oath bearing water, she was tied to hide away. She would be left to refill that chalice upon every call the gods had when swift footed Iris knocked at her grotto wall.
She could almost hear the cries of that small winged goddess, rushing back to lady Hera to spill what she saw, most out of fear for not being able to return without the blessed water needed for such fates.
She was sure that while it would turn holy Olympus up in mayhem to rival war loving Eris pleasure and laughter, it would turn all eyes on her to be hunted and found and made to kneel before lighting welding Zeus, with all his power and claim.
Be whatever he wished it was everyone's justice to commit. Oh how she wished to fight back and call out the foolishness of some god compared to the older ones, yet she stayed silent and kept what she was declared.
But now she had to bite her tongue and think of a way to avoid that.
Just what could she do with all the emotions she dared not to admit? What of the mortal souls who dared to pass by her, what of those who sought to seek some kind of goal beyond her wall of entrance where she hid away under?
Just what could she do, beyond sleep away the days she spends without life?
Perhaps another day would mean something, dwelling so long she would find an answer far beyond her current mind.
Maybe she would be blessed by the fates, by the goddesses above, far in the sky and across the land, mayhaps they have the answer she would need one day.
She dares to let out an unwanted sigh, slipping back into her slumber, hand left to tease the water's surface, trailing back to her and her home.
She would sleep on it, think in her dreams and the endless night away, her dea
r friend Nyx surely wouldn't mind her missing her escape for the sky this time.