Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

How To Be a Goddes
By Josiphia

7 pages in word with times new roman font and 1.5 spacing.

Author's note: This was written a while ago but definitly one of my best ideas. Feel free to barrow it just change it enough so it becomes yours. This is only chapter 1 there are 7 chapters I think...

Chapter 1: The Messenger of Olympus

Hermes rehearsed his message over in his mind one last time as he flew. He was now coming to the end of the ocean to North America and freezing his arse off. He had to fly all the way from Greece to give this stupid massage in the middle of winter. Why couldn’t Zeus just trust me to not get in trouble? Well I guess he had a point about the stealing of all of Apollo’s cows. Apollo was overreacting anyway.
He came above the dairy state called Wisconsin. Why would a potential Greek goddess live in this place? He swooped down as fast as a falcon diving in on its prey down behind a building. He was in a back yard of a suburban house. Suburbs feel like a wasteland of culture. It was night and a good thing too because he wouldn’t be spotted as fast. His winged sneakers would stand out definitely if he tried to blend in. So stealth was a good way to go.
You’re probably wondering why he says sneakers instead of sandals. He gave up on those while ago and upgraded to these nicer and faster ones. (And no, he does not wear a toga still, but the staff is the same). Hermes jumped over the fence that separated the back from the front. He checked the address on the number box to make sure it was the right house.
A light was on in one of the windows and Hermes could make out the figure of a girl crying. The girl was who he was giving the message to. He flew up to the window and knocked. She practically fell out of her bed before running into her closet and slamming the door. “Go away you heartless bastards!” She screeched.
Hermes waited for her to come out and let him in but it wasn’t coming anytime soon. This is taking too long. He waved his hand over the lock making a click and he slid open the window. He was standing in a plain white room with drawings hung on the wall all of mythical creatures. There was no door knob on the door and there were faint drops of blood on the floor. Hermes went to the closet door and said “I have a message for Lady Ursula David.” She opened the door a crack and looked confused. The fourteen year old girl just stood there but then whispered more to herlself then Hermes “I must be dreaming. My head was hit too hard.” She had bruises on her arms and a black eye which had tears dripping down. She looked so pitiful the poor mortal.
“Are you Lady Ursula David?”
“Yes. And you are the god Hermes. I read about you in history. I’m definitely dreaming.”
“So you know me? What gave it away, the staff or the winged shoes?” He said this trying to lighten her mood. “Well I at least I don’t have to waste time with introductions. I have a message for you. You are invited formally to an interview for likely candidates for the position of a goddess/god. There are six other chosen such as you. You will come to the local library in the back to meet your escort to Olympus after school. And that’s bout it. Oh and if you don’t come we will hunt you down and drag you there from your bed and will ignore your screams of terror and those of your family.” Her eyes widened at the last part. “I’m just kidding. Of course you will go. Who doesn’t want to be a god? And you can get away from whoever did this to you. As a god you can get revenge if you want.”
Ursula pinched herself and then winced at the pain. She sat down on her bed bewildered. She wasn’t crying anymore at least that. “Why am I being chosen?” She murmured quietly. “I don’t know really. You just seem to be promising for some reason. If you want to know ask Zeus when you get there. Maybe sometime we will see each other again but for now I have six other messages to give across the world. Good bye and Good night.” He said this and jumped out the window. Ursula got up and watched the immortal fly away into the luminous full moon.

)-)-)-) I (-(-(-(

I didn’t want him to leave. Terrie wouldn’t hurt me in front of other people. This can not be happening. This is like an escape and there is no escape for me. How can you escape from family? I went to my bedroom mirror to inspect my bruises. They were tender and sore. If this wasn’t a dream and I could be a goddess the first thing would be to banish Terrie to hell.
She was nothing but an ugly step mother. No she wasn’t ugly. She is the complete opposite. That is how she won over Dada. Oh Dada. I miss you so much, how could you leave me here on earth alone? She holds your death against me. She says if I tell anyone of her alcoholic rampages that she will tell them about you.
All I can do is wear long sleeve shirts to hide my bruises and lie about my black eye. I’ll laugh it off and say “clumsy me” when they see. All will be alright to them. I feel so alone in this private hell of mine. With that I collapsed but I had no more tears left. All I can do now is go to bed.
The next day I woke still sore. I scowled as I looked at myself in the mirror again. I was ugly with the bruises on my arms and my black eye that made me squint my blue eyes. My light blond hair that reached to my shoulders was a mess too.
I got dressed and changed into my clothes. I made sure to put on a long sleeved shirt. I went through my normal routine before I realized my weird dream. Should I go to the Library? Was it really a dream? Well any way, I need to go and get my books that I had on hold.
School went fine. People barely noticed me. They never do. You would think that I have friends by now, since I have been living here for three years by now. I went to my classes and barely listened. I paid attention to history though. We were discussing ancient Greece and their gods.
There is a hierarchy of gods, all of them is related in some way making it one big family. Zeus who was mentioned by Hermes was the king of the gods. Hermes is the messenger god so no wonder he was the one that came to my window. He is also the god of thieves, cross roads, trading and commerce. He was the child of Zeus and a nymph because Zeus was having yet another affair. He stole all of Apollo’s golden cattle when he was only a day old. Zeus made him return them and made him the messenger god so he would be too busy to get in trouble. There are twelve Olympians all together. Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Ares, Hermes, Hephaestus, Aphrodite, Athena, Apollo, and Artemis. I can’t remember what they are all the gods of. There are also tons of minor gods too.
In my later classes I doodled the gods that I have learned of. I waited impatiently for the bell to ring and I ran out the door when it did. I walked to the library in the snow. I stopped to admire the big statue of a frog reading a book in front of the library. I always thought it was cute but people kept engraving their names into it.
Inside I got my book I ordered and headed to the back. If there was no one there I would just read to stay away from home as long as possible till the library close. This was what I usually do anyway. I wished hard I would find someone there in the back. This was my only way of escaping, and maybe proof that I’m not crazy to believe in dreams.
But there was someone. There was a woman there. She was sitting patiently on one of the big comfy chairs and reading a book. She wore a rainbow head band and knee high rainbow socks. She wore a pink skirt and a shirt that said Princess in bold lettering. She looked up at me and before I could ask anything she whispered “Are you Lady Ursula David?” she sounded very cheerful about it.
“Yes I am. And who are you?”
“I’m Iris and I will be your escort to Olympus.” She got up and continued “before we go did you say good bye to anyone important to you?” I had no one important to me so I whispered, “No, I already have.”
“Great let’s get going. We don’t want to keep people waiting.” She led me outside and behind the library which was where the park was. She stopped and suddenly a rainbow sprouted out of the snow at our feet. I stood mouth open. She started walk on it which was even weirder. “Are you coming or not? You can’t chicken out now you know.” She said. I nodded and took an uneasy step on the rainbow. It was translucent but solid. I got to about where Iris was standing when the rainbow began to move forward. I looked behind and saw us lifting off in an arch. It was like someone was pulling the other end of the rainbow like a rope, reeling us in.
I was frightened I admit as I clung onto Iris who didn’t seem to mind. She must have taken mortals on her rainbow before to think this is normal. The ground disappeared in lightening speed and I couldn’t feel any movement. We were above an ocean now. We went through clouds and over ships. We came to land again and I could see a mountain tip not even a stone throw away. At this point we lifted up higher. I clung to her hand for dear life and shut my eyes. What had I gotten myself into?
She said to me “Were here! Welcome to Olympus.” I opened my eyes to find a giant Greek style temple sitting on top of a cloud. There were other ones too but not as grand as the one I was standing before. My eyes widened as I looked at the mosaic on the ground. It was made of many pieces of cut diamonds showing all the gods in intricate patterns. “Nice isn’t it? We better get you looking descent. There is a dress code around here.” Iris said to me. She snapped her fingers and she was in a rainbow colored toga with a pin showing a cloud with a rainbow coming out of it. Her hair was up too now in a loose bun.
She led me through a hall with portraits of birds of all kinds. Mostly they were of eagles and peacocks. She took me to a gold plated door and let me in. I found three other girls there surrounded by all sorts of clothes. One was a black girl and had huge loop earrings. The other was Asian and had pretty black eyes. The last pale white and was skinny, with glasses but had pretty brown ringlets in her hair.
The one with the huge hoop earrings was the most outgoing of them all and strutted up to me “Hey there. Are you here to be goddess too?” and I nodded to shy to say anything. “Hi my name Akiki. This is Lyn.” She said pointing to the one with glasses who gave a shy wave. “That Dohna.” She said pointing at the Asian girl. “Hi, and who are you? Are you going to be goddess too? And what happened to your eye?” she said with a Chinese accent. Akiki elbowed her for being rude.
Iris then said “Well I’ll leave you girls to decide what you want to wear. To be a goddess you must look like one.” She left the room and I was left alone in a room with almost complete strangers. It was a nice room. It had doors on one wall, one for each of us, probably the dressing rooms. There were about ten wardrobes with clothes just spilling out. And three was one big vanity with all sorts of hair things and accessories.
This was too weird. This is not like any other dream I had but what else could it be? It can’t happen in real life. There is no god or gods because when I tried to pray for help nothing happened. Well I’ll just play along. This is a nice dream so far.
The other girls began opening the giant red oak wardrobes and digging into the tide of fabric. I looked around and a shiny white cloth caught my eye. It was under a pile of red and black dresses so it was easy to spot the hem of it. I pulled it out and gasped at how pretty it was. It was a simple design but it seemed to glow like the moon. Lyn noticed it and said “Wow! I really like that one. Are you going to wear it? Because if you don’t want it, I’ll take it.” She had a British accent that sounded upper class. “Well I really like it. But I’m sure I can find you a pretty one too.”
“That’s great! You have better luck then I am. Just look at this.” She said holding up a short pink dress with frills. It was hideous. “Lets see.” We began looking through the clothes but I found a really pretty one about her size. “Will this do?” I said. She squealed in joy and ran into one of the dressing rooms on the other side of the room with it in her hands. “She seems almost too happy.” Said Dohna. I went to the changing rooms and put on the dress. It looked great on me. But my bruises showed too well. How am I to impress gods when I look like this? I came out and all of them gasped. “You . . . look. . . GORGEOUS!” Screamed Akiki. “But you can’t have that hair like that. Let me try doing your hair. Pleeeeeeaaasse!” She begged. “Sure.” I said.
She got to work on it right away and went to the vanity. She slaved over it for about twenty minutes before coming out with the final product. My hair lay in spiraling curls and braids that framed my bruised face. “Thanks! It looks great!” It really did. “Your welcome.” Came her reply. The other girls took about a half an hour more before a knock on the door. I opened it to find Iris smiling “you all look great! I can’t wait to present you to Zeus.” I got nervous suddenly. I have to stand in front of all the gods? Their GODS! I’m just a little girl playing dress up.
Lyn looked nervous too. I gave her a weak smile as we fallowed Iris down the hall. This place was huge. On the way Iris stopped at a room and out came three boys. They didn’t talk much and looked confused like us. We took so many spiraling turns before reached one grand hall way with a grand huge door plated with gold. Iris pushed open the doors and found ourselves looking at a set of twelve thrones all decorated differently all in a circle. In the middle sat a man with a white beard and was heavily muscled.
I presumed this was Zeus. Iris greeted us one by one telling of our names, and where we are from. First was Lyn. She was pagan and from England. Then a boy called Helmuth, who was form Germany and was Christian. He had nice blond hair and a strong face. Then Akiki, she was Jewish and was originated in Africa but came to the U.S. Next was a boy called Jack who was Muslum who had short cropped hair and dark eyes. Then was Dohna who was from Tibet and was Buddhist. Next was a boy called Sahale who was Native American with his long black hair in a short braid. Last was me. I was called atheist and was from the U.S. Wow I’m sure special.
After the introduction Zeus said in a booming voice “Welcome all. We have hand picked you to become gods and goddesses. We do this to make peace with the other major religions around the world. At least among the gods, but the humans may still quarrel for many years to come. Our deal was that we needed someone from each of the major religions to become one of us for the peace treaty to be settled and we threw in a couple more. We will train each-”
Akiki raised her hand.
“Yes child.” Zeus said.
“So all of us are going to be gods?”
“That is right. You will each get a chance to spend two days time with the each of the gods that have volunteered to take you in. Think of it as an internship. You will learn how to be a god and then you will get to choose what to be the god of. Or you can choose to be an assistant god which is more likely to happen. Choose wisely what you want to be.”
I raised my hand and said “Will we ever go back to earth?”
“You will not have time to go for you will be too busy. But yes you can visit if you want to. Now enough talking lets have our welcoming feast.” He clapped his hands and they all appeared in a great dining hall seated on a comfy chair. The room had cherubs and nymphs painted on the high ceiling. On the table all sorts of food were laid on the table.
I saw a plate piles high with hamburgers and dug in. I hadn’t had a hamburger in so long. Terrie was a strict vegetarian but had no care for how much alcohol she consumed. Well here there didn’t seem to have any underage drinking rules either. A handsome god poured me some wine but I didn’t drink it. The transformations alcohol causes are terrible.
After the feast I was stuffed. The to-be-immortals around me were also. We all had big servings of our favorite foods. It was wonderful. Best of all I don’t have to worry about going home. This is too real to be a dream and I like it.