The Bull of Minos
"Catch it, catch it!"
A small clay ball arced through the air. Four pairs of eager hands stretched up to the heavens, their owners' eyes hungrily following the path of the toy.
"I'm going to get it!" The youngest boy took a few stumbling steps backwards. "It's coming!"
"No, that's not fair - it's my turn!" His brother turned around and gave him a hefty shove. "You got it last time, Androgeus!"
"Don't push me!" Androgeus knocked him hard on the shoulder. "It's whoever catches it first, Glaucus, and so far it's been me, because I'm better than you, and-"
"Look, Asterion's going to catch it!" The third player, an elder girl, cut through her brothers' bickering. "Look! It's going right his way."
The boys stopped and turned, and watched as their half-brother lifted his hands to receive the ball, which was, indeed, making its way straight down towards him.
He was a little boy, still very much a child, yet he had experienced much more of the evil in this world than some will ever have in a lifetime. For while his mother was the graceful daughter of a powerful Titan and an elegant naiad, his father was a bull.
A divine, exquisite, snow-white bull, but a bull nonetheless.
Thus, the unfortunate Asterion entered the world a monster. A twitching, snorting newborn with a furry, bovine head atop a regular human body, all who gazed upon him balked and cursed.
That pitiful boy! If only the gods had shown a little grace and had kept his father's qualities at bay! Perhaps then he would not have been so teased and ridiculed. And perhaps the King of Crete his stepfather would have viewed him with much less austerity and vehemence.
Alas, it was not so, and the poor child had much mockery and derision to endure.
He excelled in martial activities such as sparring, yet could fathom neither the art of writing nor of song. His brothers found him tiresome and slow in the classroom, and much too rowdy and solemn in play.
His sisters paid him little mind, particularly the older ones. Gruesome he was to them, and they silently deemed him unfit to join their lessons. Thus they sat and watched in the classroom, harbouring quiet judgement from afar. At first, the youngest princess, called Phaedra, endeavored to engage her half-brother in play during the long hours of song-writing; however, his simple mind could not comprehend her intentions, and she surrendered and retired to her elder sisters.
Soon, only the penultimate daughter of Minos would sit with Asterion.
Ariadne alone maintained a sweet patience for her little brother. She had been there when Asterion was born, and had witnessed the repulsion and loathing with which he had been greeted, the antipathy which no child should ever face. Even his own mother shrank away in disgust when she first laid eyes on him. Ariadne had crouched in a corner, unseen and unheard, as her father had raged and stormed at everyone and everything in sight, roaring out frenzied orders, striking whoever came too near.
All I ask for is a son. A son! Is that too much?
King Minos had stopped and stared at the creature in the cot.
You gave me four daughters, he had hissed, breathing heavily through his nose. Then the gods promised me a son. A son worthy of bearing my father's name. But this... this is not my son. Ariadne remembered watching him turn away, then startling as he swung savagely back towards the silent newborn. Away with it! he had thundered. Cast it into the fire, into the ocean! Relieve us the pain of gazing upon this... this monster!
Then Daedalus had intervened.
Darling Daedalus! Thank the gods for the old man. While he had conferred with the king, Ariadne had crept up towards her new brother and peeked into the wooden crib. Initially, she found him strange and morbid to look at; however, the longer her eyes lingered, and the more she took in the infant, the greater pity was found in her heart.
She had always been cared for. Perhaps her father, athirst for a son, did not regard her as much; but her mother had constantly been there, wiping away the tears that fell, braiding her luscious locks, singing her favourite songs.
So Ariadne wondered what it would be to enter the world, vulnerable and blameless, only to be shunned and sent from it again so cruelly. And as she wondered, a great sorrow stirred her tender heart. She gazed down at the babe once more, and resolved with all her might that this helpless being would come to no harm while she lived. Happily, she did not have to face her father on the subject; Daedalus had turned Minos's wrath with the warning that the gods would certainly denounce a man, however high in status, for the cold-blooded slaughter of his own son. An agreement had also been reached between the two men in regards to this creature, but one could only guess as to what the particulars of this arrangement were.
Thus, Asterion grew up in the somber protection of Daedalus and the amorous care of Ariadne.
* * *
"Ariadne, your yarn's going to fall - oh!"
The bright ball of yarn tumbled off the table where Ariadne sat with her embroidery; rolling along the floor, it came to a stop at a pair of feet. With a quiet grunt of surprise, Asterion picked it up off the ground and followed the thread back to its rightful owner.
Ariadne smiled. "Thanks, Asterion."
He lowered his head in reply. In the years that had passed, the bull of Minos had grown taller, stronger and bigger than any of his other siblings. His younger brothers, who hadn't played with him much anyway, had completely halted their revels with him several years ago. He was much too rough, they complained, and took everything too seriously. And besides, it was too easy visualising one of those sharp, curled horns impaling an undefended torso during a spirited wrestling match.
Consequentially, Asterion spent most of his time in solitude. Ariadne would occasionally join him, and the two would be seen roaming the grounds or simply sitting together, relishing one another's company in a manner none could comprehend.
How do you live with him? Ariadne would be asked. He's an animal. You're a princess.
To which the girl would merely smile and reply, he's a prince.
Several years ago, while the joy of youth and blissful ignorance had still lingered in her eyes, Ariande had gathered choice flowers from the palace garden and painstakingly woven them together using a strand of blue thread. Having created this delicate crown of irises, poppies and rosemary, she proudly presented it to Asterion. If one had chanced to step round the corner of the courtyard at that very moment, a tender, most beautiful sight would have awaited him.
One little girl, hair flowing down her back, balancing on her toes to gently place a fragile string of flowers upon a monstrous, yet curiously princely creature, who was down on one knee, as if in a coronation.
Truly, even the cold King Minos would have thawed at such a sight!
Alas, he was not there to witness it, and so knew nothing of the gentleness of the beast, nor of the deep affection which had forged between his daughter and the bull, and so all this blindness resulted in hard, raw malice which consumed him and left no room for mercy; for even as the creature struggled and fought, and his sister screamed and protested, and all who were witnesses swore by the heavens that it had been an accident, that the soldier had not been killed willfully, Minos's ears were shut, and his heart unfeeling.
Thus the unfortunate Asterion was dragged away and locked up in a mysterious maze.
A maze born of an agreement made long
long
ago.
* * *
Ariadne petitioned and pleaded, beseeched and begged, yet her cries fell on deaf ears.
The king would not listen to how Ariadne of past would play with the bull, or how she would spend hours upon hours in his company, or how the man's death had been a pure misfortune. He would give no mind to how harmless the bull had been, or how loyal he had been, or how diligent he had worked.
Minos would take no notice.
And so Ariadne retreated from her father's presence, miserable and forlorn. Even her mother failed to comfort her; for in her own heart, this graceful daughter of a Titan and naiad secretly rejoiced in the covering up of her shame and disgust.
Daedalus alone understood the princess's agony.
He became a great comfort to Ariadne, frequently visiting her in the garden after lessons and walking with her in the shade of the cypresses, listening to her floods of grief and despair, acting as her father would not.
Minos saw this, and was displeased. Fearing a joint revolt for the release of the bull, he ordered that Daedalus be kept in a chamber within the maze and forbade anyone from entering without his own approval on pain of death.
Thus Ariadne lost another friend.
* * *
Deep within the maze, now famously called the Labyrinth, Asterion was irate.
It was terribly dark inside, and the walls seemed to close in all around him. As an irregularly hefty creature, small dark spaces were not appealing. He had lost track of time, and hunger no longer held any meaning to him; all he knew was the wretched Minos's face, set as stone and indifferent to his pleas as soldiers swarmed over him, pulling and pushing.
And Ariadne - oh, sweet, sweet Ariadne!
Asterion trembled that harm might arrive at her doorstep on his account. She would plead with Minos, he knew. How the monster would respond to her cries was unknown to him. If Minos would readily seal his son in an impenetrable maze, who knew what might befall his daughter? Asterion thought of his dear sister laying a crown of flowers, threaded with blue, upon his horns, and he shook. If she should suffer for his sake...
Then there was Daedalus. Asterion knew not what to make of him. Since he was but a child, the inventor had taught him. He had cared for him when none other would, save Ariadne, and though Asterion had never known the sweet fellowship that he had had with Ariadne with Daedalus, the old man had been kind. Yet he himself had been seen in this Labyrinth, and the air reeked of his scent. Thus Asterion surmised that Daedalus was the father of this accursed maze, and he wondered that so courteous a man could produce so terrible a place.
The walls began to tighten once more.
* * *
Years passed.
Crete weathered many stormy winters, but spring always followed with a handful of poppies. Ariadne grew in grace and in beauty, but her heart stored a deep grief and longing for the careless days of childhood. She had lost yet another close relation - Androgeus, her youngest brother. She had watched, silent and sorrowful, just as she had years before, as her father seethed and fumed, this time at the land of Athens, where Androgeus had perished. She had stood by, powerless to intervene, as Minos demanded a tribute of fourteen Athenians each year as payment for his son. She had witnessed, sick at heart, the line of doomed foreigners as they trudged into the Labyrinth, too weary for hope. And she had waited, oh, how she had waited, for someone, anyone to emerge from that wretched hole.
How came this to be her fate she knew not. She only grieved and despaired at the time in which she lived, the time in which the innocent were sentenced to death, the time in which her father thirsted for blood, the time in which her brother was dead, her teacher imprisoned and her dear friend corrupted to a life of cruelty and ruthlessness.
She wept, how she wept for the tortured pure, the blemished innocent.
With all her might she prayed to the gods; that change may come, that evil may not be allowed to endure.
And, like the rushing of a great wave sent to cleanse the defiled sand, the answer came...
...in the form of a young man
named
Theseus.
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