The Goddess of Blessed Death

Fire and Fates

Thanatos paces, the tips of his wings dragging lazily against the clouds he walks on. His sister Ker sits, twisting her finger through the cloud as if it was cotton. Her cheek rests against her palm as she watched below.

"How much longer do you think?" she asks.

They've been waiting for days at this point. Deianira gave Herakles the coat soaked in Hydra's blood. The pyre was built on Mount Oeta. Heracles was burning--and not dying.

After two days, even Thanatos has to admit it's getting to be vexing. Sure, demigods are unusually tough, but they still die as easily as the next mortal once a fatal blow lands.

"It makes no sense," Thanatos mutters. He stops moving to cast another look down at the pyre. Herakles's body remains intact among the flames.

"Does that matter?" Ker asks.

"I'm going down," he decides.

"I'm going home," she says and evanesces as though she'd abruptly become one with the crowd.

Without any horror or violence, there is no reason for Ker to stay. Thanatos wasn't sure of what was happening at first, hence him calling upon her, but after the first few hours of nothing changing, Ker quickly grew bored. It's a wonder she lasted two days.

With less than a thought, clouds gives way to dirt and rock beneath Thanatos's sandaled feet and fine mist morphs into jagged mountain sides. Where the air had been cool, it becomes heated and humid from the pyre. Those who came up the mountain side cannot see Thanatos and he walks freely among them.

Herakles's wife, Deianira, is nowhere to be seen, but there is always at least one of his children nearby. Much like Thanatos, it's the third sleepless day for the warrior-charioteer Iolaus, but where it has no effect on Thanatos, it wears on Iolaus. His eyes sink deep into his skull and his expression is slack. Few engage with the older warrior. Since the pyre was built, he has acted as a dutiful guard.

Thanatos stands beside him. Herakles's daughter Macaria stands on the other side of him. On the first day, when everyone still thought Herakles would burn and end his own suffering, she prayed that his death be an easy one. No one prays about death. It's almost un-Greek to invoke Death. So, it was silent, but as Death, Thanatos heard. It is not unheard of but certainly unusual to hear a prayer made in his name. Now, she squeezes her Uncle Iolaus's hand.

The three stand so close to the pyre that Thanatos squints against the heat's onslaught. Herakles's body is immobile among the flames, as though he fell into rigor mortis and the flames are as cold as the winter night air. He steps closer, and the air shifts. The wind picks up, and dark clouds draw near. Macaria and Iolaus stumble backwards.

"We have to set up protection for the pyre!" Iolaus says.

Macaria, however, stares up at the sky. Slate-gray clouds cover the sky. A flash of light spreads through the darkness. "Uncle Iolaus," she calls.

Iolaus is barking out orders to surrounding men. When Macaria's brothers Hyllus and Ctesippus come up, Macaria is quick to place herself between the men so they have no choice but to acknowledge her.

"It's lightning, Uncle Iolaus," she says. Her calm demeanor is like a single rose within a twisted, mangled thorn bush as men rush about to do as Iolaus has bade. They are frantically trying to find supplies to hoist a canvas over the pyre. Thanatos marvels at the young woman.

Iolaus stares at Macaria incredulously. "Yes, it is," he says. Rain drizzles down, and he curses. "Girl, return to your mother. Ctesippus, would you?"

Macaria's brown eyes blaze. "You of all people should know," she snaps at Iolaus. The wind whips the ends of her brunette hair up in a crude rendition of dancing snakes. "You're going to insult the god of gods."

When Ctesippus reaches for her arm, Macaria jerkes away from him. Another flash of lighting. A crack of thunder. She marches away from the pyre. Thanatos drops the mirage and flutters his wings.

Iolaus gasps and staggers backwards, falling. Guards still as if Medusa looked at them. At the commotion, Ctesippus and Macaria spin around. Macaria is the first to move. Ctesippus makes to grab her but with one glance from Thanatos, the strongest son of Herakles freezes. Macaria approaches warily but steadily with a lowered gaze but sure steps. Gazes shift between Thanatos and her. He is about imposing as it comes, the only comfort being that he is neither Hades nor the Keres, which is momentarily wiped from memory at the sight of the seven-foot, blonde, fair god with speckled wings spanning over twenty feet when spread. Zeus's weather melodrama makes spreading them unnecessary, though.

Even so, Macaria stands a few feet away with doe-eyes. Her lips part. Then, the lightning strikes. It hits the pyre, and Macaria cries out. Thanatos is all but forgotten as she races passed him to the smoldering pyre. Herakles is gone. She turns to Thanatos, but he vanishes before she can speak.

Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ

Down below, as far below as one can go, the underworld lives in darkness hazy from the orange candlelight. Among the vast amount of rooms is one very large workroom. It is simple with no décor and little furniture: three klismoi for three aged sisters and a wooden spinner, which the youngest works with.

Three sisters sit amongst one another, unusually silent. Their song of what was, what is, and what will be has paused. The eldest and sternest, Atropos raises her abhorred shears to the thread that Clotho spun and Lachesis measured. Their gazes are glued to those metallic edges as they close on and snip the life.

Heracles is dead; the Keres, dispatched. He put on Deianira's cloak. Zeus sent lightning down to burn the mortal half of his body and stop his suffering as the Moirai snipped his thread and the Keres feast. Zeus is bringing his divine half to Olympus. They paused their song more out of acknowledgment than purpose. He's a god and though not even Zeus holds power over Fate, the sisters are not rude or inconsiderate.

Their song begins anew. Clotho spins and Lachesis measures and Atropos cuts. They take their duty seriously, as it is their life. They do not and will never stop. There is no disappointment or anger in that: it is a fact. It is their life. Clotho spins with patience and earnest, Lachesis measures with care and impartiality, and Atropos snips the threads of life not with indifference or dispassion but with reverence and finality.

They sing of what was, what is, and what will be.

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Image: Hercules on his Funeral Pyre, Elie-Honoré Montagny, French, active after 1819

https://artmuseum.princeton.edu/collections/objects/17246

klismos (pl. klismoi) - a type of ancient Greek chair, with curved backrest and tapering, out curved legs