49: Happy.

On Livejournal, I'm doing the 100 Moods writing challenge. Basically, I've got as long as I want to write one hundred fics about Greek Mythological characters. (You can view my list here - but be warned that things there can be anything from PG to 18.)

This fic is mood #49, and is about characters from the Greek Myths: Gaea and Ouranos. It was written for my friend Dawn. (:

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The Karpoi frolicked, their chubby child-bodies hidden behind clothes fashioned from leaves and fruits. Gaea reclined, half-submerged in the earth, and watched her Karpoi with fond eyes as they giggled excitedly and danced faster and faster. Only her four favourite Karpoi were present, the four seasonal Karpoi: Theron of summer, Eiar of spring, Phthinoporon of autumn and Kheimon of winter.

“Earth-Mamma?” Eiar asked quietly, drawing her eyes toward him. He giggled and blushed, hiding his face behind his chubby hands; and peeked out at her from between his fingers. “Do you not feel well?”

At anyone else she would have frowned; but her Karpoi were her little angel-boys, and she wouldn’t frown at them if it would save her life. So she smiled, and extended a dark hand toward him. “I feel well enough,” she murmured – but that wasn’t true. She was pining inside, aching for companionship (and for a certain god in particular: for her own son—Ouranos—although she would never admit it).

Eiar nodded slowly, seeming more like a seven year old then than he ever had before. “You want him,” he whispered. She sat up abruptly, and pain flashed across her face as her skin tore free from the ground (it always stuck, always, because the earth loved her as much as she loved it and it never wanted her to leave it, even just for a second). “You want the Sky Lord.”

Her eyes darted this way and that, but the other Karpoi were still giggling wildly and dancing in circles, and no-one else was in sight, so she motioned for him to come closer. “I do. But it cannot happen… Eiar, my sweet, he is my son.”

Eiar beamed. “That means nothing, Earth-Mamma. Nothing at all!”

She swallowed a lump in her throat (could it really be that simple? was she worrying needlessly?) and now the roles were reversed, and it was she who gave a slow, child-like nod. “I suppose.” She leaned forward, ignoring the searing pain of her skin losing contact with the earth, and pressed her lips against Eiar’s forehead. “Thank you, my dear. But, I have to ask…”

“You do not have to ask!” he interrupted quickly. He grinned, and took her bony hand in both of his small, chubby hands. “I shall find the Sky Lord for you, Earth-Mamma! I shall!” He back-pedalled, then whipped around and darted away. “I’ll be back soon,” he called over his shoulder, still beaming at her.

She smiled gratefully back at him, and turned her eyes quickly onto the remaining Karpoi. They hadn’t noticed their brother’s absence, and she hoped that they wouldn’t until he returned (with Ouranos?), for she didn’t wish to attempt to explain. Eiar had understood—by Khaos, he’d known—but she doubted that the others would.

Gaea closed her eyes; and when they opened (minutes later? hours later? days later?), he was there – Ouranos. Her son, her friend… her potential lover. “H-hello,” she said quietly, stumbling over her words for the first time in her long life.

He smiled back at her. Behind him, Eiar had rejoined his brothers; and they were giggling, their backs pointedly turned to the Protogenos deities. “Hello,” he murmured back.

And then he leaned forward and kissed her – and wind chafed at her skin, and earth clung to his, but nothing could stop him falling into her arms and kissing her, over and over again, with all the passion in his heart.