Patrons-Legacy of the Gods

Εννέα (9)

     Finally. Away from the damn paparazzi. I hated crowds; those even cheering on you for the opposite of heroism.

     As we recoiled inside the damp walls of the stadium, Tiana lingered around for additional personal space. She ran her left hand across, touching the smooth yet hard stone encapsulating us. I wondered about the other ones. They all apparently disappeared in an instant we left. I peered through a gated window inside, finding all of the seats again, empty once more.

     Her hand grasped a lever, pulling it up and lowering a grand metal gate. It swallowed up whole from the ground.

     "Where are you walking to now? We've done all this fighting and running and beating the living shit out of an innocent stranger!" Kayla exclaimed.

     "I didn't make these rules. It was thousands of years of whatever the formers thought of. All of this is to preserve the existence of this place," responded Tiana, "The gods. The Greek gods, specifically."

     "They thought of all these cruel punishments to those patrons?" I quietly pointed out.

     We were escorted inside a room built with large, wooden cabinets. About fourteen in a row. She prepared yet again for another lecture, the third one since we arrived: "After the Titanomachy and the Greek Pantheon took over, the gods began to have demigod children. You know, like Heracles, Perseus, Jason, those guys. To put it short, most of the gods huddled with lots of mortals in the past, creating more and more."

     Kayla and I tried to keep our attentive ears awake for the whole story. I recalled a few stories of gods forcing sex or rape on mortal women. I never wanted to know, yet I unfortunately do. Out of those unwanted encounters came bastard children, like that one brother from a four-hundred-year-old Shakespeare play I recently read in class. "The mortals, however, started to fear their heinous acts. They began to lack faith after hundreds of years and some even forbade praying to them."

     Kayla was speechless the moment Tiana told her of the true myths. She almost wanted to puke. I thought she knew, but maybe after growing up, reality slapped us with more disturbing secrets behind every innocent story.

     "Sigh. Nevermind. I'll skip to our history. As the mortals wandered away, the gods finally proposed a plan, fearing that they were ignored of their worship and immortal statutory. So, since three-thousand years, they formed the patrons of the Greek Pantheon. Each major god would choose both a male and female patron promised to keep their name alive and grant abilities in replacement of demigods."

     "So, they just stop having kids and... replaced them with us?" I slowly asked.

     "It's far too much to explain, but I guess you can leave it off with that," said Tiana. She opened one of the low cabinets, scattering her hands to build a grand surprise or something that would assist us. She stayed there for a while, a subtle, bright glow coming from the tiny cupboard.

     She pulled out a long, white piece of cloth. It came along with a long-sleeved dress, which Tiana hung out in bold presentation above her, hands high from her lower height. The dress greeted itself in dashing, gleaming variety. It held embroidered flowers from the silky sleeves to the torso, highlighted in colors of green and blue. Feather-like ends draped at the bottom, revoking patterns of a certain bird. One only seen once in a lifetime. A moor.

     "This will be your ceremony dress," she bestowed the dress to Kayla, agape from the gorgeous, beautiful creation given upon her.

     "Y-you made this? I..." she faltered as there was nothing to express the abstract and beauty of the dress. She stared profoundly at the intricate, delicate designing. I almost saw a tear form at the corner of her eye.