Bechdel Test Ficathon Post 1 - The Odyssey!!

[quinara]

FICATHON!!

Usually I lump all my ficathon stuff together (ah, laziness), but I have a feeling the two fics I've done so far don't really work as a group, so here I am separating them.

This first was in response to eleusis_walks's prompt The Odyssey - Kalypso, Kirke - sing, goddess.

I was cheeky and stuck with the anglicised names. There is quite a bit of swearing in this, but otherwise nothing that would get a warning on AO3. Thank you to my dear writerconuk friends for a certain level of inspiration. :P

Goddesses like to gossip. Drunkenly.

Stories the Mortals Never Hear.

The Collective of Cycladean Goddesses (or simply the Collective, as it was affectionately known) met once a year in June, and had been doing so for many years now. Someone was nominated to play host and for one week they all had the chance to let their hair down (or put it up, in the case of the Sirens, who used the opportunity to slob around and be generally cantankerous).

One year, maybe twenty before the Greco-Trojan War, it was Calypso's turn to have everyone over to Ogygia. It had been a great success, with lots of wine and trading of potion recipes - Phaethusa and Lampetia had been on a shopping trip to Egypt, so had lots of innovations to share from their friends over there. Late on Friday night, however, nearly everyone had gone to bed, pleading exhaustion and an early start on the tide tomorrow.

Circe and Calypso were the only ones still awake. They were both rather drunk. "But, I mean, what I'm saying is," Circe slurred, her betwitching and sweet voice tripping quickly over syllables, "I've met the Muses and they're all fucking - awful! Absolutely fucking awful! Obsessed with the men in their life, won't stop talking about them - there are other things to sing about, you know?"

"Mmmm," nodded Calypso, feeling quite tired herself and beginning to wonder how long it would take to clean up the cave. "But that's their problem, you know? Clearly they don't have lives - and if they don't have lives they don't have lives; it's probably because they all live together like they're still children or something. At least the Sirens have separate houses."

"Yeah, yeah, I bet that's it." Circe deflated slightly, sinking against purple cushions. She didn't really have much else to bitch about, not involving the Muses anyway, though their cooking had been awful too and they'd been too cheap to order takeaway ambrosia. "Do you ever think about moving back to the mainland?" she decided on as a question, thinking that the Muses had at least had the opportunity for takeaway ambrosia.

"Well..." Mulling it over, Calypso hesitated, swirling her wine in the cup before taking another swallow. "I can tell you a story about that - you know my half-sisters look after Hera's garden, down in Morocco?"

Nodding, Circe replied, "Oh yeah, with that dragon, what's his name - Ladle?"

"Ladon," Calypso corrected. "I think... Anyway, I went to visit them a couple of months ago and, well - they're meant to be near the sea, aren't they? But there was nowhere to land my boat and wandering up the mountain there was this viper and - uggh." She shuddered at the memory. "It was awful."

"Couldn't you command it?" Circe asked, shifting on her chair and wanting the story now. "You can, like, talk to animals as well as I can."

"Yes, well, I did tell her!" Also leaning forward on her chair, Calypso gesticulated her story, castigating the rug beneath their chairs with a pointed finger. "I'm visiting the Hesperides, I said, so you'd best tell me the way or their dragon will come and cook you up. But then! Oh, then she had the nerve to say back that she'd never heard of them! And so I asked, still fairly politely, but, you know, firm: well, they live near here, so I'm surprised by that... And she dared say, like, look, love, the mountains are slightly larger than whatever little bit of rock you're from; this isn't epic, right, so we don't all know each other - now piss off before I bite you!"

Circe could barely contain herself, "Fucking rude!! How dare she!"

"I know! And I'm thinking, I'm not standing for this - and she was only maybe a foot long besides - so I swung my walking stick and flicked her off the path, carrying on my way..." Slightly out of breath, Calypso paused, shaking her head and sipping some more wine to cool herself down (though, had they remembered to mix in the water for this batch? Oh well). "Anyway, that's the problem with the mainland, isn't it? Everyone's so rude. I can't imagine ever coming to Aeaea and being treated like that if I were trying to find you."

"No one would have the nerve!" Circe shook her head, fire in her eyes. "Honestly... This is why we need the Collective, you know," she continued fervently. "This is why we need to stick together, because no one else is going to do it, are they? I mean, are they?"

"No!" Calypso agreed angrily, though she wasn't entirely sure what Circe meant, precisely. "They're not!"

"We need to tell each other these things, so that we know we're not alone!"

"Yeah!"

"YEAH!"

That of course was when Thelxiepeia groaned from the floor. "Will the pair of you keep it down?" she asked blearily. "Some of us don't want to crash on our own rocks tomorrow."

"Oh, yeah," Calypso replied sheepishly, as Circe took her cue to get some rest herself. "Sorry."

And so the CCG Meet ended, for another year.

Comments

[evilawyer]

This is fantastic!

[quinara]

Oh, thank you!! :D

[stultiloquentia]

Someone was nominated to play host and for one week they all had the chance to let their hair down (or put it up, in the case of the Sirens, who used the opportunity to slob around and be generally cantankerous).

Haha, excellent.

look, love, the mountains are slightly larger than whatever little bit of rock you're from; this isn't epic, right, so we don't all know each other

*whoop!*

[quinara]

:D Thanks!!

I may now want to do a sequel about Little Miss Viper's adventures with snooty goddesses...