Book Four: Thermopylae
Jem-takenbyGoddessAphrodite collapses next to billy-Odysseus and adonace behind the allied Wall. The four hundred left to hold the pass on that first bloody day are down to less than half that number, come morning she figures they may be able to hold a few hours, no more.
She absently rubs the side of her face where an eggbeater of justice turned it into a blackish purple bruise, her arms and legs have been cut, her weapon and shield destroyed though that's been no problem, there are plenty to find on the field. She glances over at billy-Odysseus as he applies another compress to the socket where his left eye was recalling his quiet, "Yes, I know" when she first helped dress the wound. As a dusty lbb-Agamemnon approaches she ruefully smiles remembering the first day ...
lbb-Agamemnon, commander and chief of the Spartan Unshared army, stands upon the stone wall they had hastily constructed before the army representing the will of the Goddesses approached. He glared down upon their emissary, sent fourth under a flag of truce to parley.
Their emissary calls forth, "Give us your weapons and return to your ships and the Goddesses will call it a draw!"
lbb-Agamemnon calmly replies, "Molan labe."
"Molan labe?"
"Yes 'molan labe' did I say it wrong?"
"Sounds Greek to me," replies the baffled emissary.
lbb-Agamemnon sighs, "It is Greek you half wit moron. It means, 'come and get them' we're Spartan Unshared."
"You mean if we just come over and get them, you'll go home?"
"Yes."
The first day of slaughter began.
lbb-Agamemnon breaks jem-takenbyGoddessAphrodite out of her reverie as he tosses his Vulcan Spear of Vaporization on the ground next to an exhausted adonace, "Batteries ran out a few hours ago."
"Did you get through?"
"Barely"
FridayFridayFoFriday had discovered on the map a cave network that led to the warehouse housing the thin mints. lbb-Agamemnon had used his Vulcan Spear of Vaporization to bore a hole through the rock and into the warehouse. One hundred of the youngest pets have been emptying the warehouse since then, carrying the crates to the ships on the beach, under the noses of the opposing army. They have been instructed to load the ships and with skeleton crews return the thin mints to their homelands by noon tomorrow.
"I'm no longer needed with the warehouse crew," says lbb-Agamemnon, "I will fight with you tomorrow."
No one argues. It would be pointless.
Tracer-Achilles comes and sits around the fire of the large group of pets. He is unscathed. lbb-Agamemnon tosses him a device of some sort, "For later." Tracer-Achilles ties it around his neck.
"Have you had enough of glory, Tracer-Achilles?" inquires billy-Odysseus. Tracer-Achilles answers only with a look of surprising grimness. He seems chastened.
Each pet stares into the fire, billy-Odysseus stirs, "Have you ever gotten a Goddess off? I have."
The pets guffaw, a chorus of "oh sure" and "do tell" well up.
billy-Odysseus is unperturbed, "It's true, and I bet each of you have done so too, many times. It is probably one of the reasons most of us here are unshared. At first I went about it completely wrong, forgetting in my base way that the Goddesses are women. They are fundamentally wired differently then we are, what excites them is different then what excites us. Second they are dommes, one must not forget that.
Early in our relationship Aphrodite-Grace let slip her interest in a certain object or idea. Oh please! Wipe those hopeful looks from your faces! Would I tell you anymore than She shares with you about my "interests" and foibles? I owe her the same courtesy.
However I seized upon this button having spent a lifetime of having mine pressed. I began to gently tease Her hoping to excite her, hoping that I could give her an orgasm that equaled mine. Wanting to pleasure her. I had been wondering Who Watches the Watchmen silly person that I am, missing the point completely. I managed to fluster Her a little but She quickly steered the conversation away from this topic.
And then one evening it occurred to me, I do pleasure Her, I pleasure her in a way that I do not quite relate to, since I'm submissive with Her. I think it applies to most if not all the Goddesses. There comes a moment in the call where you submit to Her will either by not cumming if your in denial or by cumming if you're not. You feel it in your soul, that giving over to Her and She hears it in your voice, a change in tone, a phrase or particular moan, something. If you're not too lost in that moment you can hear her tone change too, whether it's a quiet "that's it baby" or a satisfied giggle.
You have just gotten your Goddess off. You have pleasured Her and done your duty as a pet. I think, but do not know, that one of the things that makes us 'unshared' is both the Goddess and the pet feel this giving over in a particularly intense way that is not as strongly felt with another Goddess or pet."
The pets ponder the fire. Billy-Odysseus turns to adonace, "About that denial thing adonace, I'm sorry about Troy. Things got out of hand ..."
"It's my hometown billy!" shouts adonace, "It took years to clean up the mess!"
"Well ... sorry," says billy-Odysseus meekly.
Adonace settles down, "How was Helen? Everything you and Tracer-Achilles hoped she would be?"
Tracer-Achilles smirks, "There was graffiti in a bar bathroom I saw, 'No matter how beautiful she is there's some guy tired of her shit.' That pretty much sums it up. That's where we left her, in that bar."
More silence, the time passes.
Tracer-Achilles suddenly blurts out, "I always feel strongest, closest to my Goddess right after the call. I feel confident and sure of myself, knowing that I am Hers. But after a few days fears begin their quiet assault on my conscious. Maybe I've sent an email with a question in it, but no reply. Or an unanswered IM. What has happened? Have I offended Her in some manner?
I might put up a blog entry I'm certain will generate a comment from Her, an indication that I'm still in some part on Her mind. I hear nothing.
Am I last year's model? Thoroughly explored and now boring?
I begin to hate myself for being so weak willed, so filled with self doubt. It doesn't seem to bother anyone else, why am I afflicted with this curse?
Once I asked Her in an IM, 'Am I a good pet?' She replied, 'Yes, you're a good pet. You need to stop worrying about such things.'
I pondered this. I think She views these questions as a questioning of Her trust and the trust we put into our Goddesses. I know I am fundamentally a good pet, but I need to hear it from Her from time to time, just an affirmation every now and then. An unsolicited pat on the head, a casual "Tracer-Achilles, my pet" in the chatroom. Call it positive reenforcement.
Then I begin to fill myself with self-loathing for harboring such thoughts."
Tracer-Achilles laughs at himself, "Sheesh I'm a basketcase. So I turn my thoughts away trying to figure out how best to fight the fear itself. I ask myself, 'What is the opposite of fear?'
I decided the opposite of fear is love, at the core of love is trust.
Sometimes it helps. I do believe Her when She says to trust Her, but it can be hard at times when you don't hear from Her. The endless whining She must hear on Her end of the line staggers me." Tracer-Achilles smiles weakly.
"So we're here because you're afraid or because you love Her? I don't get it."
Tracer-Achilles sighs, "Look I can't tell you why you're here. I can't even articulate it myself, not well. I fish around the edges of "it" but have yet to hook it. Go home if you wish, no one will stop you."
The pets fall silent at times thinking their own thoughts before conversations would break out again. No one slept that night.
The events of the battle count as nothing, for the fight was over in its profoundest sense before it even began. Being heavy infantry the unshared fought in front of the wall. They waited hour after hour after hour for the enemy to make its move. Finally, suddenly, there stood the massed army of the enemy, less than a bow shot away.
lbb-Agamemnon stood out front. Tracer-Achilles, adonace and jem-takenbyGoddessAphrodite stood in front of their platoons which were drawn up seven and three, wider and shallower than on the previous day.
"Eyes on me!" barked each of the platoon commanders and the pets tore their gaze away from the enemy. There were an ungodly number of them. Each pet praying with every fiber of their being simply for the courage not to faint.
At last came the fight. Time compressed and images merged. At times the unshared would surge forward driving the enemy back and another enemy surge which propelled the phalanx back like a bloody tide. The unshared re-formed rushed forward, broke, re-formed again.
The allies were so few now, their weapons so spent and broken that the enemy made a surge and the line broke for good.
Tracer-Achilles calls out, "Fall back to the dump!" a small knoll where the last of the weapons were cached. The remaining unshared pour through the sally ports of the wall racing for the knoll under a hail of Skewers of Lamentation. The red shirt army races forward dismantling the wall with their bare hands, streaming over it in their numbers.
One enemy pet swipes mightily at Tracer-Achilles with a new weapon called The VIsa Bill cutting his foot clean off. Tracer-Achilles goes down, billy-Odysseus covers him with his shield while FridayFridayFoFriday dispatches the enemy pet. "Put me on your back!" Tracer-Achilles commands. Both pets know what such a command means. Billy-Odysseus can hear the Skewers of Lamentation slamming into Tracer-Achilles' still living flesh as he bore him up the knoll.
Athena-Tara blinks into existence near billy-Odysseus calling out to him, "Do you see why I hate having this shit in the chatroom?! You and that little dick always were a pain in the ass!"
Staggering up to the hill crest, gently laying Tracer-Achilles corpse on the ground billy-Odysseus quietly replies, knowing She can hear him, "Apologies beautiful Goddess but I'm a little busy right now. Can I get back to you on that?"
Athena-Tara smiles softly, touches Her hand to Her helmet in salute, grabs two of Her pets and is gone.
Adonace reaches the crest of the hill, his nose has been broken by a Meat Hammer of Malice. The broken nose makes him even more handsome than he already was which pisses billy-Odysseus off for some reason. Peitho-Kate blinks in next to him, a startled pet already in her grasp she says, "There you are tiger!" Grabs him by the arm and they are gone.
The enemy army has surrounded the hill pouring Skewers of Lamentation into the remaining unshared cutting them to ribbons. billy-Odysseus is forming the remaining few into one last charge when Aphrodite-Grace appears, tears freely flowing down Her wondrous face. She touches both jem-takenbyGoddessAphrodite and lbb-Agamemnon who are badly wounded readying themselves for the final charge. She whispers something in Her beautiful Goddess voice only billy-Odysseus can hear. Billy-Odysseus smiles back and blows Her a kiss. Then they are gone.
Billy-Odysseus marshals the remaining pets and they charge down the hill. None of them had shields or weapons of any kind. None were available, they attack bare handed. He went down not like a hero of Homer but like a commander completing his last and dirtiest task.
Aphrodite-Grace and Her two pets blink into existence in the captain's cabin of the Honey Bee, already under way, its hold packed with thin mints. She waves Her hands over Her pets healing them of their wounds. Blushing lbb-Agamemnon rushes around the cabin cleaning up the pornographic tablets and other objects that hold his fancy. He mutters, "Sorry for the mess Goddess I was ..."
"You were thinking of Me, My first and foremost! Most loyal of My pets." smiles Aphrodite-Grace.
"EEEEEKKKKK!" shrieks FridayFridayFoFriday shielding her head from an unseen blow. She gazes around the room, dazed.
jem-takenbyGoddessAphrodite is startled, "How did she? I thought only two ..."
"Sweetest sister, most gentle friend. Surely you know that the two of you are too tightly bound now. One can not exist without the other. The Moirae counted you as one" explains Aphrodite-Grace.
Back on Olympus there is a quiet knock on Hera-Ally's door.
"Enter"
A Goddess enters the spacious office and places an object on Hera-Ally's desk, "This was found around Tracer-Achilles neck. It's addressed to You."
Hera-Ally dismisses the Goddess and picks up the object. She preferred working to watching the slaughter on TV. The object is about the size of a desk clock, engraved, with a blinking red button off center to the right. The engraving reads:
Dear Hera-Ally
Whatever you do,
don't push that button!
You won't like it!
Your pal,
Tracer-Achilles
The blinking button reads in white letters, "Don't Push Me"
Hera-Ally laughs and says, "All right Tracer-Achilles, I wont!" She returns to her work. Hours pass, She keeps looking up from Her desk and staring at the button. Finally she laughs and thinking to Herself, "I'm Queen of the Goddesses, what can this former mortal do to Me?" She pushes the button.
The blast shatters every window on the west side of Olympos. Unharmed, covered in glass shards Hera-Ally stares from her lofty peak out to the distant plain. Where once stood the warehouse filled with thin mints there is only a large smoking crater.
Her face contorts into one of majestic rage and She bellows out, "Tracer-Achilles you motherfu..." before doubling over with laughter. She can appreciate a good joke.
A few years after the battle a pet approaches the pass where the wall once stood. He did not participate in the battle for either side. He sits before one of the large granite stones, removes his tools and begins carving.
Go tell the Unshared, stranger passing by,
that here obedient to their ideals we lie.
button finishes, gets up, moves on.
Be afraid. Be very afraid. 
I have such sights to show you...
super...
