Ebb and Flow

The child is crying. He is a small, pink thing, though it feels as though he has doubled in size in the blink of an eye. Thetis has seen so many mortals come and go – generations of them who have been born and lived and died. But here is the first to have been born from her own womb, to be nursed by her own breasts. She had always watched the cycle from afar, and while she had favorites, she had always known better than to get attached. Their lives were too short, too fleeting.

And now she has one of her own, her tiny boy, her Pythios. Perhaps he is destined to be the child of prophecy, destined to surpass his father, but Thetis does not care for any of that. All she cares about is that he is perfect and beautiful. Thetis lifts her son into her arms and holds him close to her chest. Pythios is growing heavier by the day, but Thetis can still lift him easily. No matter how larger her son grows, Thetis will always be able to lift him easily, one of the gifts of being a goddess. In the warmth of his mother’s arms, Pythios’ crying quiets, and he lets out a warm gurgle of pleasure. His small body wriggles, but it’s a relaxed, comfortable motion. He’s not trying to escape. His hair is soft as Thetis presses a kiss on his head.

Was this the life that Thetis had imagined for herself? On some level, yes, she had always wanted motherhood, had always wanted children. It had been almost a joke among her sisters, how Thetis was always the one who doted on the youngest of creatures. The other Nereids had other interests of their own, ocean salt and seaweed, the largest and mightiest of beasts, but Thetis had always had a soft spot for the smallest and the most vulnerable. She had dreamed of having one of her own. There was a time when she had been courted by Zeus himself, and in her naivety, she had let herself imagine the glorious children she would have, inheriting the strength of the king of the gods himself. Her heartbreak afterwards had been more for them than for herself when Zeus had turned away in his cowardice.

She had never imagined she would end up here, in Phthia, married to a mortal and bearing his children, but that has become her life all the same. Pythios blinks up at Tethis with his father’s eyes and scrunches his face in a way that means he is about to start wailing again. Thetis brings him closer, presses their chests together and pats Pythios on the back, humming a lullaby she learned from the sirens when she was only somewhat bigger than Pythios is now, splashing in the waves along with her sisters. Their own mother had been loving but absent. All the waters of the Earth had been her domain, far too vast for even a goddess to linger upon any single part of it for too long, even if that part was her own children.

Thetis has not become a mother like her own. She has become doting, hovering, unwilling to leave Pythios’s side. Thetis had thought she had known what love was when she had been young and wild and free, when she had spent all her days deep underneath the surface of the ocean. She had loved so many things back then, the fish and the turtles and the jellies and the crabs and the clams, but even her adoration for all of those beautiful living things pales in comparison to the feelings that swell within her when she watches Pythios make his first awkward attempts to crawl. It’s mixed in with the terror she feels when she considers all the things that could do him harm, this half-mortal child who has only a sliver of godhood to protect him.

She spends another few hours with her son: feeding him, cleaning him, pressing kisses to his small hands, his small feet. It isn’t as though she has any other responsibilities here in Phthia beyond hosting the occasional feast. She is still there, dangling a brightly colored strip of cloth in front of Pythios as Pythios stares at it with wide, confused eyes, when Peleus returns home. He had been away on a diplomatic trip to Athens for a few days, there to resolve some petty human squabble that Thetis could not be bothered to concern herself with. And now he is back, sweeping into the room with a bright smile, soft eyes, and an amphora held in both hands.

“What’s this?” Thetis asks.

He settles the amphora on a nearby table and then comes over to Thetis to place his hands on shoulders. Peleus drops a kiss to the top of her head. “The finest wine in all of Athens,” he declares. When she looks up, he smiles at her, a handsome, crooked smile. He is so proud of this, this simple, human thing that he has offered her.

Thetis has dined in the halls of Mount Olympus – they both have. She has eaten the finest ambrosia from Zeus’ table and drank the sweetest and purest nectar in all of creation. And here is her mortal husband, attempting to impress her with an amphora of human wine. She looks at his face, at his brown eyes, at his smiling mouth. There are lines at the corners of both, creasing his face. When had that happened? He had seemed so young when they had married (though maybe not by mortal standards), barely more than a child. Gods don’t age the way humans do, but they still carry the years around with them, and it has always been most obvious in the depths of their eyes. When she had first met him, Peleus’ eyes had been startling to look into. He had seen so little, and it was obvious to anyone who had ever had any contact with immortality. But now Thetis has lived among the humans long enough to recognize the effects that time had on their all-too fragile bodies. The weathered skin. The graying hair. The creaking joints. Before Thetis had come to Phthia, when she was still dancing with her sisters through the seas, she had never noticed such things. Humans were simply there until they weren’t any longer. Like the fish or the insects or the birds. Now she can’t stop noticing it, how terribly short and fleeting their lives are.

She takes the amphora from the table and opens it, pouring herself a cup of wine and taking a sip. It tastes fine for human wine, dull and sour, but it does leave a pleasant enough aftertaste on her tongue.

Peleus settles on the ground, and Pythios gurgles out a sweet laugh before making a few awkward crawling steps in his father’s direction. Peleus lifts his son up with both hands until Pythios is standing on his feet. Pythios looks around with half-seeing confusion, but it is a lovely sight to Thetis’ eyes. Peleus is smiling, radiant. In the late-afternoon sunlight, his features are golden and glowing. A new feeling climbs up Thetis’ throat, something clawing and desperate. She isn’t used to this, this horrible desire to hold on to this moment and never let it go. How did mortals live like this? Constantly aware of the ongoing passage of time?

Thetis hates it. She hates the way it makes her feel small, powerless.

Peleus looks up at her, and his smile wilts at the corners of his mouth. “What’s wrong?” he asks.

She shakes her head. She doesn’t have the words to explain it. One day, her son (and her husband before him) will travel across the River Styx to the Underworld, beyond her reach. She had known it before, but the reality of it feels so much more present right now, a dark cloud lurking over this otherwise joyful moment.

Peleus seems to understand, but as a mortal, he must have some native awareness, some animal fear of death that Thetis is only just beginning to grasp. “You’re clearly upset,” he says. “Come, let’s find somewhere more private.” With a gesture of his hands, he summons a servant to take Pythios away.

Thetis feels her son’s loss almost immediately, a phantom limb, but she resists the urge to grab him back, to hide him away and never let any danger near him ever again. Peleus is right. She isn’t any use to Pythios in this state.

Peleus leads her into their shared bedroom, a hand low on her back. Thetis watches his face, The way a divot appears between his eyebrows. The way his lips twist with concern.

She remembers their wedding feast, thrown by Zeus himself in Mount Olympus’ finest banquet hall, a celebration for all the gods who were relieved to now be free from the prophecy. She and Peleus had been seated at the highest table, above the chaos and revelry all around them. The hall had been filled with the sounds of music and chatter and laughter, but she herself had been quiet, withdrawn, angry and upset at being tricked into this. He had been sweet and attentive the whole time, trying to coax her out of her shell. He asked her questions and listened to her answers, as if he did genuinely care about her beyond some gaudy bauble, a prize to be won. She had liked him for that then, though the feeling had not been deep or rich enough to be called love. In a grand godly room that contained nothing but distractions, he’d only had eyes for her, and those eyes had held nothing but adoration. It had been unsettling, uncomfortable, to be at the center of that attention. But she remembers thinking that, despite her hesitations and reluctance, he had a kind face. “Sorry,” she says to him.

“I don’t know what you’re sorry for,” Peleus says. He draws her close and presses a kiss to her hair.

“I don’t know what I’m sorry for, either,” she confesses. Her thoughts feel diffuse, disconnected floating through her mind like seaweed caught in the ebbs and flows of a rising tide.

“That’s fine,” he says, settling his arm around her shoulders, and it’s only through months and months of practice that she doesn’t flinch away from his touch.

It’s not him. Or it’s not just him. There are times when she loves him like any wife loves her husband, and there are times when his presence feels as suffocating as a blanket wrapped around her face, and all she wants is to be back home among the wind and the waves.

She is not confined to this place beyond her wedding vows and her desire to watch over Pythios. If she wanted, she could walk out of the city tomorrow and return to her sisters, dive into the deepest depths, so far down no human would ever be able to find her. And yet, she stays. She may have ended up here as a part of the gods’ machinations, but it hasn’t been all bad. Phthia is beautiful, a deep valley carved by a river that runs into the Aegean Sea. The palace gardens have knobbly trees that she loves to sit underneath in the hot, summer months. When it rains, she will lay in bed and listen to the sound of the pitter-patter against the ceiling. The people are kind enough. During bouts of homesickness, she can still close her eyes and catch the scent of a distant sea breeze and breathe in that familiar tang of salt and brine.

Peleus says, “I missed you while I was away.” His tone is wistful, yearning. He leans against her, his larger body pressed against hers from shoulder to hip. This touch doesn’t provoke her flight instincts, doesn’t make her want to flee. This touch is steady and reassuring, a comfort.

“I’ve missed you, too,” Thetis says, because she has. The palace has been so quiet without him. For whatever reason, most of the servants avoid her – answering her questions with short, clipped statements, looking away from her eyes when they pass in the hallways, conversations going silent every time she enters a room. Perhaps it shouldn’t be possible for time with a young child such as Pythios to feel quiet, but he isn’t exactly much of a conversationalist at the moment. When Peleus is around, he will do little things to try to make her smile: showering her with extravagant, overwrought compliments, always with an edge of teasing to show he knows how ridiculous they are; gifting her flowers picked from the palace gardens, their blooms fragrant and beautiful; retelling stories he’s heard in the markets, silly little mortal quibbles and complaints that blow up into absurdities. It works more often than not. He approaches it with a dedication that impresses her, as if he keeps some sort of mental tally of what she likes and what she doesn’t.

Even when she’s been conflicted about her own thoughts and feelings, she has never doubted his devotion to her. He wears his emotions so openly, always has, since the first time she met him. Poseidon had introduced them on a rocky beach. The stones were smooth and hard underneath her bare feet. The sky had been a cloudy gray, and the winds had been strong, whipping through her hair. Peleus had been cautious and curious at Poseidon’s side, just some dark-haired, dark-eyed mortal. Thetis had resented him on sight, mostly because of Poseidon’s insistent matchmaking, his solicitous and more than the tiniest bit smarmy attempts to convince her that this human would be her ideal husband. Thetis had known that Poseidon was scared, the way all the male gods had been scared, desperate to find someone much weaker than them to fulfill the Fates’ prophecy. Thetis’ own thoughts on the matter hadn’t been taken into account during their attempts to find her a husband that wouldn’t threaten them, and she would have been more than a little resentful of anyone who had been brought before her. She had not been kind to Peleus that day, cold and indifferent and even somewhat cruel, but he had still looked at her with a sort of awe, and he had said that it was an honor to even meet her. Thetis had considered that maybe it was just some sort of immediate infatuation, a mortal’s first time in the presence of a goddess, but he still wears that same expression when looking at her to this day.

Sometimes, the intensity of his adoration feels like a weight on her back, a burden she’s expected to bear. And at other times, it feels like a precious gift, one that she has never done anything to earn.

Before him, she had been free to go wherever the currents would carry her, flitting to and fro without regards or regrets. To be immortal is to be unchanging. They are born as they are always meant to be. But now Thetis has become a wife, a mother, and with those responsibilities, she has learned to mold herself into a new shape, has had to contort herself into this new creature who is capable of planting roots here in Phthia for this one man, for this one child.

Because this is who she has become, she cups his face in both her hands and kisses him. He makes a pleased noise into her mouth, tinged with surprise. She knows she hasn’t ever been this openly affectionate with him before, has never reached for him with the same desire with which he’s reached for her. But she does want this. She wants to be closer to him. She doesn’t know why she wants this, but maybe that doesn’t matter. She is his wife, and right now, she wants him.

His hands skim over her shoulder, undoing the clasps on her peplos. The fabric falls away, leaving her chest bare. She releases the fasteners of his chiton as well, so that she can unwrap him the way he unwrapped her. She has always liked the shape of him. Narrower than Zeus. Broader than Apollo. Not so large that he towers over her, but not so small that he feels insubstantial. His skin has darkened from his days traveling out in the sun, though his chest is pale from where it has been covered up by the fabric of his clothing. He pulls her back in close to kiss her again, and she tangles her fingers in the curls of his hair, clutching at them with a surprising ferocity.

Sex among the gods is more of a game than anything else, and Thetis played her fair share. There had been nymphs and satyrs and a centaur or two who had passed in and out of her bed. Thetis had enjoyed them all. Peleus is not like any of her previous lovers. He’s serious when they would be silly, hesitant when they would be bold. His hands were always a little clumsy and overeager, but his lips were always as sweet as they looked.

Thetis tilts her head to the side so he can kiss his way down the side of her neck, and she lets her mouth make the noises that she had been uncertain about making the first time they did this. That time, she hadn’t ever bedded a mortal, and she didn’t know what was expected of her. Did he want her to be loud and lusty? Shy and demure? She had ended up somewhere awkwardly in between, aggressive at some times and stiff at others. But for all his other faults, Peleus has only ever expected her to be herself.

His hands gently nudge her backwards until she is laid out on the bed. “You are so beautiful,” he says. His hands linger in her hair. She usually ties it back to keep it out of her face, but he undoes the strips threaded through her hair and pulls them free. She knows he loves the way she looks like this, with the strands fanned out all around her head. He says it reminds him of watching her as she floats on the surface of one of the nearby ponds, and he is right that it is one of the places in Phthia where she is the most truly, genuinely happy.

She tugs at one of his arms, pulls him down so that he is on top of her. He lets out a huff of breath, almost a laugh. His hands skim her sides until they settle on her breasts. The callouses from his spear training drag over her skin. He teases her nipples in the way that she likes, an edge of sharpness. Her nipples were more sensitive when she was still feeding Pythios, but the sensation still draws a pleased moan from her lips.

Thetis closes her eyes. Like this, when they’re in their bed, she can let their history fall away from them. She can let them become just this: two bodies coming together, a wonderful push-and-pull, a dance as old as life itself. She can grip his shoulders and imagine that she was the one who found him hidden away, that she was the one who grabbed him, held on as he shifted through so many forms – a lioness, a serpent, a burning flame, the water itself – in an attempt to escape.

He makes out a soft noise as she digs bruising fingers into his back, and his hips shift forward, pressing his hardness between her legs. Thetis’ arousal is only just beginning to spark, but it *is* sparking, bringing with it the promise of more pleasure to come. She presses her lips against the sharp angle of his jaw and bites down on it. Not hard enough to draw blood, not enough for her teeth to meet bone, but enough to make a mark, to stake a claim on him. Peleus lets out a soft hiss at the pain, and his hands stutter where they are at her sides. They haven’t done this before, played these sorts of games. Peleus has always been too gentle with her, and Thetis’ feelings have always been too tangled for her to push for anything this adventurous. But with this new hunger snaking its way through her, it feels so very possible.

Peleus asks, “What do you want?”

What does she want? She wants Pythios to grow up with a playmate, a sibling who can fill the palace with the sounds of screams and laughter, who can be for Pythios what Thetis’ sisters had been for her. She wants more joy, to produce more of those all-too-fleeting mortal moments that leave her aching from the happiness bursting within her. She wants to feel some measure of control over her life, the way she hasn’t since it was taken away from her by the machinations of the gods. She wants to wrest it back with both her hands and feel it, heavy and slippery and warm, in between her fingers. She wants Peleus to bend for her the way she once had to bend for him. Something of that must show on her face, because Peleus swallows roughly, and a slight blush spreads from his cheeks to his chest. She presses her thumb against his bottom lip and digs in, peeling apart his lips. He lets her, not even putting up the slightest bit of resistance. She says, “I want your mouth.”

He nods, eyes eager and bright, and a tangled, twisted feeling surges up within her at the sight of him like this, ready to do her bidding. He presses kisses to her lips, her cheeks, her neck, her shoulders, her breasts. He lingers on her belly, scraping his teeth along the divot of her belly button. Maybe he is also remembering how it was when she was pregnant, heavy with child. It had been strange, but not uncomfortable, seeing and feeling how her body had changed day by day, week by week. One of the servants, an older woman, said that she was lucky for that, as it was different for mortal bodies. Peleus had loved to press his hands against the curve of her belly, and the look on his face as he did so was the most joyous she had ever seen him. He especially loved it when he could feel Pythios kick, grinning from ear to ear every single time. Maybe he is imagining her like that again.

She slides her fingers into the curls of his hair, uses the leverage to guide him further downwards towards the space between her legs. The first brush of his lips there is electric, wet and sharp, and she tightens her grip, encouraging him on. He knows how she likes it: steady, even pressure. It had taken them more than a few fumbling attempts for her to teach him that, but he took to it with the same eagerness that he’s taken to everything else.

His hands rest lightly on her hips. She spreads her legs wider. He licks her there with long, slow strokes of his tongue, and his mouth makes wet, pleased noises as he does so. It’s good, and she lets herself sink into the sensation. The feeling, the arousal, builds and swells until her climax crashes over her, a wave breaking against a rocky shore.

She is still enjoying the aftershocks rolling through her when Peleus lifts his head, his face flushed, his mouth smiling. She watches him with heavy-lidded eyes. He shifts his weight back, licking his lips, and he starts to move upwards, but Thetis tightens her fingers in his hair, holding him in place. She thinks of the currents, the ocean winds, all these things that bend to her will with just a flick of her hand. What is just one other mortal man in the face of all of that? “Again,” she says. She curls her legs over his shoulders, trapping him there between her thighs. A clear enough message.

He lets out a groan from deep inside his chest. “Yes,” he says, voice breathless. His eyes are glittering in the dimming light of the setting sun. His hair is disheveled, sticking up in tufts in places and falling over his forehead in others, from where she’s had her hand in it. It’s a lovely sight. And then he ducks his head again.

This time, he slides some fingers inside her, an accompaniment to the press of his tongue against her clit. More heat, more friction, a delicious feeling of fullness. She uses her legs to pull him closer so that she can grind herself against his face, taking some more of that friction for herself.

The next orgasm steals over her body gently, an easy rise and fall, like the surface of the ocean on a calm, sunny day. She tightens her grip on his hair, tight enough that her knuckles are scraping his scalp, and she makes him do it again. And again. And again. Until her whole body is strung out and shivering. She’s so wet that she’s soaked the bed beneath him, and Peleus’s face is smeared, slick and shining, with her juices.

His pupils have been blown wide and dark, and she draws him up the bed so that she can lick his cheeks and lips clean. The taste reminds her of the deepest sea depths. It reminds her of home. He shudders as she does so, but his body is still relaxed, still loose-limed and compliant. His cock is hard, flushed so red it’s nearly purple, and at the sight of it, she feels that fierce, clawing hunger rise up in her again. She knows what she wants.

“I want another child,” she tells him. “I want you to give me one.” It feels good to put it into words, to say it out loud. She’s been silent for so long, that it feels like a revelation to finally speak.

He makes a wordless noise of agreement in response, nodding his head as best he can with her hands cupping his face. His fingers twist in the sheets, restless and uncoordinated. She turns them over so that she’s straddling his lap. She likes the way he looks like this, sprawled out, vulnerable, at her mercy. He has never lorded it over her, but she has always felt aware, keenly so, that he was her husband, and she was his wife, and that there were expectations of what that meant for the both of them. She drags her nails down his chest, enjoying the way he shudders and the short, sharp bite of pain. She grinds her hips down, meeting his hardness with her wetness. His hips buck up in response, and a gasp escapes his lips. His head is turned to the side, eyes squeezed shut, like he’s so lost in the sensation that he can’t even look at her face. His control is fraying, but that’s all right, because she has it well in hand.

The first press of his cock into her body is intense, again with the heat and pressure and friction but more now, even though she’s wet and slippery and ready for him. Her eyes fall closed as well so that she can focus on it, the sweet slide of him into her, the sensation of opening up and of being filled, connecting them together. It’s different than the first time: him awkward and hesitant while she was still quiet and resentful. She had enjoyed herself at the time, determined to squeeze every bit of joy out of it that she could, but the bitterness had sat low and heavy in her gut, and had taken weeks before it finally melted away.

Now she rides him with slow, languid rocks of her hips, rolling over him in unhurried motions, savoring every sensation. His breathing comes shorter and shorter, heavy pants as he nears his own crest.

“Yes, she says, her voice barely louder than a whisper. “Give it to me.”

The moan he lets out when he comes is half-strangled, a keening noise not so different from a wail. She can feel him release inside her, leaving her drenched, soaked through with their mingled essences where their bodies are joined. When she closes her eyes, she can even imagine his seed taking root deep inside her, waiting to grow. A new child. A new addition to their family.

When she opens her eyes again, he looks like he’s still catching his breath, his chest rising and falling in an uneven rhythm. There’s still color high in his cheeks. She can see the red mark on his jaw from where she bit him. It will still be there tomorrow, vivid and obvious to everyone else, an unmistakable claim of ownership. An emotion steals through her, as sudden and as startling as a sea gale. It’s too barbed and jagged to be called love, but it’s too tender to be called hate. The shape of it feels strange and unwieldy as it makes its way through her chest.

“I love you,” Peleus says, because he has always been a simple mortal man, and his feelings for her have always been simple. There are times when she envies him for that.

She doesn’t say anything back, but she does lean over to kiss him again like this. Their bodies are still joined. Their breath mingles together. His hand sneaks up to press against the curve of her belly, the place where their next child will grow. Another boy – Thetis can tell already – and it’s possible that this one will be the child of prophecy, though it’s just as possible that he will not be. It doesn’t matter to her, this thing that only the gods have worried about. She will love her new son all the same. She will protect him from all harm as best she can, do everything in her power to shield him and guide him, just as she will with Pythios. She brings up her own hand to meet Peleus’s on her belly, and she laces their fingers, twining them together until she’s finally ready to let go.

FIN.