Ragnar is nothing like Helios. He’s always so hard on me. Our mother says they both love us equally, but only one of us got a winged pony for our tenth birthday while only one of us was forced to climb Yggdrasil before being told that the reward was the journey.
Lucy smiles at me, her teeth glowing just like her eyes. Everything about her is incredible. She is tall, willowy, gorgeous. On her sixteenth birthday there was a contingent of centaurs who claim trying to mate with her. Helios has had to ban all four hooved creatures from the island, aside from the ones he bred himself.
I do not have that problem. I am much shorter than her, and what my mother calls ‘curvier’, though we both know she means heavier. Ragnar tells me it’s muscle, that his bloodline produces strong warriors, but no teenage girl wants the physical appearance of a brute force warrior.
“Come along, girls,” my mother says sweetly as she enters the room. I know why she’s here. She’s come to hurry us up, because contrary to what Lucy thinks, the whole world doesn’t actually revolve around her.
“I am along,” I sigh as Lucy disappears into the bathing chamber to get some part of her body wet.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” My mother is a great beauty in her own right. Both Helios and Ragnar are absolutely head over heels in love with her. I’m the only female in my family no man is interested in.
“Nothing.”
I can’t tell her. She’d just tell me that I’m beautiful when we both know that’s not true. If it wasn’t for tweezers I’d have brows to rival Ragnar.
“I shouldn’t be going to this party. It’s pointless. I won’t have a single suitor.”
“That’s because of your father.”
“Because I’m ugly like him.”
“No. You’re not ugly, and nor is he. It is because suitors are terrified he will rip them limb from limb.”
“Helios can be scary….” I can’t even finish the sentence. Helios is the nicest guy in the universe. That’s why Lucy has never gotten into trouble in her entire life.
“Don’t worry, Raine,” she says. “Your man will come when you are ready, and eighteen is not ready. You and Lucy should be having fun, going to see the world. Okeanus is a big place, and there is much for you to learn.”
“You had me when you were close to my age.”
“I was twenty-two,” she says. “That’s four years away. Plenty of time for you to find someone who isn’t afraid of your father.”
I laugh. I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t afraid of Ragnar. My father and Helios rule this island, and all of Okeanus. We are the princesses of the royal gods, titles which probably should have gotten us more attention than we’ve received over the years. To say we have been kept from the other gods is an understatement. We've been barely allowed to leave the golden palace. Occasionally we thought we’d left, only to find that Helios had opened up another wing for us to explore. This relatively small island has been the absolute limit of our explorations.
But now we are eighteen. And that, my mother says, is the age we get to start making decisions for ourselves. I have my doubts about that. I don’t see what difference a birthday makes. It won’t make Ragnar less unnecessarily protective, and it won’t stop Lucy from being the most beautiful goddess in all Okeanus.
“I’m going to help Lucy do whatever it is Lucy is attempting to do,” my mother says. “Perhaps the guests will be able to leave before morning.”
She disappears into the bathing chamber and a moment later, Helios taps on the door, then sticks his head in.
“Girls, are you still not ready?”
“I’m ready,” I say.
Helios doesn’t really hear me. He listens to Lucy more than he does me. He’d swear he doesn’t play favorites. That we are both his daughters, but we have always known which of my mother’s lovers is our particular father.
“I’ll be ready soon,” Lucy smiles brilliantly as she emerges from the bathing chamber. She and Helios share the same incredible smile, the same bright golden hair. Lucy has a glow about her which cannot be replicated by anyone who is not the daughter of Helios, god of the sun.
“Alright, sweetie,” Helios says, closing the door again.
My mother follows him out shortly thereafter.
The second we are alone, Lucy hurls the dress she is wearing off her body.
“I have absolutely nothing to wear.”
“Your ancestors were clad in the stars and the sky,” I say. “Maybe you could just go naked.”
She gasps, her eyes widening as if I just said something of such pure genius she can’t contain her excitement.
“You’re right! I’ll just go out there like this. In my birthday suit.”
I should stop her. I should, but I want to go to the party, and I know what Lucy wants: attention. She’ll get all of it by going out there stark nude, and I’ll get what I want: this whole thing over as quickly as possible.
I want to be at Yggdrasil, below the branches and leaves, catching the moon glow through their dappled leaves. It would be quiet there. I’d have peace, instead of going out to be stared at by strangers with dubious intentions.
“Let’s go!” Lucy sashays over to the doors, throws them open, and proceeds to step out onto the top of the stairs, presenting herself with a fanfare of trumpets which ring out at her appearance.
“OOOOH! AHHH!” The crowd reacts much as one might expect them to react at the sight of a beautiful virgin baring herself to them without shame. Lucy has always had the confidence her beauty imparts. She has never been afraid to go anywhere, or do anything.
Now she begins to descend toward a swarm of forgotten gods, taking the stairs one slow step at a time, twisting her body to make the most of the display. Her long hair covers some of her breasts and sex, but not all of it. The golden cascade sweeps back and forth, playing peekaboo with her privates until…
“NO!” A rough growl cuts through the noise of the crowd and the triumphant trumpets. Ragnar bursts through the gods, drops a cape over Lucy’s shoulders, and sends her upstairs with a swat to her behind.
Lucy’s yowl of annoyance is music to my ears.
“What are you doing!? Helios doesn’t care!” she screeches the appeal to her golden father, who has done absolutely nothing to intervene.
“Helios does care,” Ragnar growls. “Put a damn dress on.”
And there goes the Lucy show. Nobody is going to notice me for the next few hours at least. I’d thank her, but my eardrums would probably shatter from her indignation which is reaching levels high enough to make bats fall from the sky even though it is now contained behind stone walls.
I’m starving.
Nobody notices me as I slip downstairs and head to the tables decked with rich foods which most of the gods ignore because there are really only three people here who actually need to eat. Myself, my mother, and the nude wench upstairs who is complaining my father embarrassed her by making her wear clothes.
Lucy has never been comfortable with consequences. She floats through life being adored by everybody. Even Ragnar, who would flail me alive if I came downstairs naked, simply put a cape on her and hurried her back up.
Fortunately, the food is excellent. The shrimp in particular is very good, and the accompanying sauce is delicious. I make my way along the tables ringing the outside of the room, picking at various treats. Some of them I recognize. Some of them I don’t. I overhear various snippets of conversation as I go by.