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Glory to the Muse, Erato, for she rules this story and its contents of poetry and love.
Long ago, when the immortals still walked the surface of Gaia, the king of the Gods was Zeus. This is a story about the conquest of women and Zeus had many conquests of women, but he is not the hero of our story. Zeus’s father was Cronos, and before Cronos there was Uranos. Uranos, the sky, sprung from the body of Gaia, the earth, and then copulated with her to make the Titans and their leader, Cronos. Before the Titans, and even before Uranos and Gaia, there was Chaos. Chaos had five children, Eros, Gaia, Tartaros, Erebus, and Nyx. Nyx, goddess of night, was the first to gain carnal knowledge of Cronos, the second king of the gods, and from their union the plagues of man were born. The plagues were many but our story concerns only one of them, Zeus’s third cousin twice removed, second cousin, first cousin, and half brother, Thanatos.
Thanatos was the god of Death. You may know Charon whose job was to ferry souls across the River Styx to the land of the dead. It was Thanatos’s job to drag the souls of men to the banks of the Styx while they still clung to their corporeal bodies with every one of their wispy fingers. The ghosts would plead with him, asking to return to their old shells for just a few moments to say goodbye to their families, or for one last night with their love.
Thanatos ignored their cries. He knew it was all lies. He would never allow the wiles of a mortal to ensnare him again. Sisyphus had tricked him, telling a sad story of his children having no inheritance if Sisyphus was not allowed back to life for just a few minutes. Thanatos considered the mortal’s situation for only a moment, in which the crafty Sisyphus threw a length of chain around the god of Death. The vile human being escaped to a second and third lifetime before Thanatos brought him into Erebus’s darkness for good. Thanatos would not be put into chains again. Death would not be imprisoned again. He would continue to bring humans to the banks of the river of Erebus until the end of times. It was his purpose.
There were times of war when Thanatos was rushing back and forth between the surface of the earth and the world below, bringing the spiritual remnants of the casualties closer to their final resting places. There were other times in peace when Thanatos could relax and only had to fly off from his home atop Cloud Mountain every hour or so. It was in these moments of respite that Thanatos looked down on the human race and envied them. They still had occupations and purposes, but the order of the universe did not call them to one thing or another. The mortals of the world chose their place in it while Thanatos was bound permanently to be the caretaker of souls.
On one of those peaceful days, Thanatos looked down on the humans and one of the young girls of marriageable age caught his eye. She was not beautiful like the other girls with silky brown hair and luxurious hips. This girl had hips that seemed no wider than her body and disgusting brown hair with blonde streaks in it. She had a small nose, so she could not smell her future husband’s dinner while it cooked, and she had almost no eyebrows to keep the hot Hellas sun from blinding her. It surprised Thanatos that so pitiable a girl would be left alive instead of abandoned to the wilderness with the other undesirables. Surely, she would never be married to anyone of reputable lineage.
Yet, somehow, the girl interested him. Thanatos put his hand to his ear and was just able to catch her name before the next warm body called for his attentions. Anorexia.
After Thanatos dealt with the screaming and kicking soul he observed Anorexia in her daily labors. She washed her father’s and her mother’s clothes in the river with the largest rock she could pick up, which was not very large. She milked the cows. She fed the chickens. She attended to her younger brother who had a fever as children sometimes do. She did all her chores with a downcast eye and with few words in response when her parents demanded more of her. She was the perfect filial daughter and one of the finest wives if only she weren’t so ugly.
Thanatos took to watching her every chance he got. He spied her from his throne on Cloud Mountain and slowly crept closer for a better look. He was entranced. Her form was thin and damaged just like…Just like the dead. Thanatos knew she was repulsive in the classical sense, but to him, she was beautiful.
His obsession with Anorexia increased. He began watching her as she slept and sometimes coming in close enough to smell her dry and oddly colored hair. She could not see him, for she was not close to death, but Thanatos felt she was aware of his presence. Her joints always made popping noises when he was nearby. She would sometimes stop and stare at shadows. Thanatos wished he could reveal himself to her, but it was not his choice to do so. Being next to her if not talking to her would have to be enough for now.
As the days went by Anorexia grew thinner and thinner. Thanatos thought she might be losing weight because his presence unnerved her, but he also noticed that a little bit of the food she was served always seemed to be put under the table for the dog instead of in her mouth. The bones on her arms and legs began to show and she used smaller and smaller stones to clean the laundry at the river. She was wasting away. Thanatos wasn’t concerned. He was aroused. Her cadaverous body pleased him even more than before. He wondered how far she could go before she would see his face.
Eventually, while milking the cows, Anorexia collapsed. She would’ve lingered and possibly recovered if Thanatos had allowed her family to care for her, but he did not. He gently picked her soul up out of her body and welcomed her into his world. “You have nothing to fear, Anorexia. I have been watching you and I want you to be my wife.”
She said, “Yes,” and Death finally had something of his own.
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One. Despite two of the players being familiar with this riddle, they tricked themselves into thinking the answer was zero. This is because they thought the question was only referring to “kits, cats, sacks, and wives.” Aldarian lost his questions.