Metis Is Spared

Metis, the goddess of wisdom and cunning skills, sits on the edge of the Aegean Sea and whittles away at drift wood; her knife a razor clam shell. She carves all the creatures of the sea: turtles, dolphins, crabs, and seahorses. Little figurines pile up beside her as the waves come in and recede; turning the gray stone black: sunfish and starfish and eels like thick strands of kelp. The little shavings tumble at her feet and collect in the tide pools like apple blossoms. Her carvings keep her company. They do not become the real fish of the sea but sit beside her; gently watching the tides rise. She does not enchant them to grow scales and webbed fins. The crabs are not brown and red but stay remain cool and colorless; if anything, they bleach in sunlight. They become white like marble , like the tops of waves.

She is not bothered by anyone on this lone island. It is just the figurines with their pearly eyes and herself. No one wants schematics to thunderbolts or weapons of mass extinction.  She hears nothing but the content motion of sea spray against rock. She has hidden herself away and no one can find her.

And yet here comes Hecate in a boat of silver and stars. She has been given dominion over the sky, land, and sea and she knows where Metis is. The sun casts its rays upon the water and they shatter it into a thousand pieces of glass. Hecate sails through the sea black and white gold silently as a specter, as a wraith.  

“Dear Sister,” Metis says as she cuts into a crab’s basswood back.

“I come baring news of the war,” Hecate replies and steps from her gilded boat and onto the black rocks flecked with algae like moss.  

“Is it over? What has happened?” Metis stands to greet her sister with arms wide as the gray horizon.

“It is and we have lost,” Hecate says and Metis knows she will stay on this island from now onto forever, “He has spared a number of us from the world below the underground. You may stay here on these islands and that is better than the abyss and darkness of Tartius.”

They both breathe sighs of relief. The war is over and they have been spared. The world has shifted, reformed, levels upon levels; a hierarchy made of unmatchable force.

“I have been given all things her on earth,” Hecate says as she slips back into her boat, “and I will tell our daughters our story. Persephone will listen. Artemis is strong. We have not lost everything. There is still hope.”

She watches her sister disappear over the waves; a shadow in the light of day. She wants to feel for the mighty Cronus, the many headed, thousand armed Hecatonchires, and the all-seeing Cyclopes but she cannot. She has been saved from eternal damnation and she will use her time sagely; just like she has always done.

She reaches into the ocean and draws up another piece of sun-whitened wood. She beings lathing away at its already smooth skin. Under her hands and the edge of that amber colored clam shell she forms the body of Typhon: the great and terrible beast that sleeps beneath the waves of that primordial sea.