One Bite ✔️ (#Wattys2017)

Chapter 7 | Part One

Hannah (Demeter) was pacing back and forth on the carved marble floor beneath her feet. Her deep red chlamys, like anemones, sweeping the floor as she wandered and her hair was a nest of lush russet brown, the exact shade of her daughters, the ends sticking out every which way. Her skin! Her bones rubbed against the flesh; she seemed to be starving herself.

"Calm, my adelfí," Neville (Poseidon) came up to her, placing a warm hand on her shoulder. She stopped her in her tracks. He leaned into her ear, "I think if you keep on pacing the floor like that, you're going to leave a mark and Harry (Zeus) will have a temper tantrum. You know how he likes his prizes kept in good shape."

Hannah turned around and giggled as she faced her brother, "You are right, my adelfós," and she glanced at the throne in the middle where Harry was sitting looking up at the sun in deep thought, "That you are."

Neville turned to look at Harry also, "I wonder why he did it."

"Did what?" Hannah glanced back at the Lord of the Sea.

"Why did Draco take your daughter?" he answered, "We both have known our adelfós a very long time and he has never been interested in any female. He has not even had an incident with a female, at least to my knowledge, since Pansy (Hestia) told him to forget about her."

Hannah smiled softly, "I'm curious as to why he took my girl too."

"Speaking of Pansy, did you know she has been chasing after Theo (Ares)?"

Hannah laughed, "I do. Haven't you heard Cho's (Aphrodite's) gossip for you know, as well as I, Neville, that her words spread across the immortal and mortal worlds faster than her own son, Eros, and his love arrows?" Neville nodded, "Her rage was even worse when she found out about Pansy chasing Theo."

Neville laughed at the love quarrel between the god of war, the goddess of the hearth, and the goddess of love, "Oh that is simply perfect!" Hannah agreed.

They were silent for only a couple seconds before Neville spoke again but this time on the topic of Hannah's daughter, "Could Draco have picked Hermione for revenge, Hannah?" she thought about this, "You know he has always been seeking revenge against us since our Father Tom's (Cronus) death."

"It is possible, Neville."

The Lord of the Sea continued on, "No offense to you or Morpheus, my adelfí, but Hermione would not have been my pick," Hannah snapped her hard gaze to his eyes, "She is too much like Lily (Athena) and her knowledge of everything. Most men, both immortal and mortal, find that a disadvantage."

"Sometimes," Hannah informed, "I find, that being a know-it-all is better than having the looks," and she looked back at Harry on his 'O so Mighty throne', "Brains can protect you from the desire of men and their twisted views of a female body. My gender, Neville," she spoke to him directly this time, "Is not some object or toy for men to look at and have at will."

Neville nodded in agreement, "But, Hannah, can you blame men for the way that a woman looks to them?"

Hannah nodded toward their brother Harry, "I can blame him, can I not, Neville? Harry did after all create females and males to be a certain way, but men should realize that they have a brain too and should start using it," she glanced back at the Lord of the Sky, "And, Harry? He is the biggest man of them all. He thinks about nothing else but the things that walk on legs rather than his wife."

Neville nodded, "Yes, I see you point, but," and he began to laugh, "I wonder if he has ever had intercourse with anything that is not female? I only hear of his feminine 'conquests,' as he so proudly boasts when he is drunk."