UNDER THE VOLCANO
by McJude
Note: This one is one of my favorites and is very unlike the usaul McJude.
Category: It is romantic and het
Rating: probably only PG-13 (using movie and not parent's standards.)
Fandom: It is from Hercules -- but more historical.
UNDER THE VOLCANO
by McJude
Everyone was standing around, cheering, celebrating, reveling in yet another victory for the good guys (this time over those who attempting to be too good) but she was sitting alone. This had to be how the groom's lover felt at wedding when he married someone she knew he didn't love. Joining in the festivities and symbolic pageantry, sharing the food and wine, engaging in pleasant conversation with friends and family, and still feeling like a useless smear of mud with stories, feelings and secrets you could not share. Except she wasn't even his lover, she was just a friend; and this wasn`t his wedding, just a victory celebration.
They had just finished an unfair trial, and she had been one of many witnesses who testified as to his innocence. She was sure no one believed her because the things of which she spoke were not to be believed. Here in Greece, the home of legend and myth, her story was considered too strange to be true. Yet, here she stood, testimony to the fact that Atlantis had existed and Hercules had saved her. In the end the charges were dismissed, so no one really cared to discuss her life; especially, it seemed, Hercules.
She would return to the inn for the night and tomorrow to the village where she had been living. She should have realized when he had never come to visit her that the talk about being friends for a long time was just that, idle talk to fill the time on a long sea voyage. She had lasted there almost a year by telling herself that he was busy with his family and friends, but it was not until she was called to testify at this trial that she realized just how important these family and friends were to him. He really only had a small spot he had left in his life for anyone new; certainly not large
enough for someone who wanted to be a significant part of his life.
She would gather her possessions and move on. The world was a big place. She would find a new land with abundant water, fertile soil, and warm sun and go back to being a farmer. She would draw her comfort from the land, and not from a tall handsome hunk of a man who didn't acknowledge that she existed, let alone that she loved him.
* * * * *
Vernal Equinox, three years later.
"I only have a few bunches of spring greens and cutting from my herbs. The winter has been long. I need bread. I will have more greens next week." She hated the fact that she had to beg the baker to accept a lower price for his golden loaves. But she was hungry.
"You know, Cassandra, I trust that in a month you will have more than enough money to pay for this bread. Your produce is the best in the area. My family is just as hungry for those wonderful spring greens. Here, take a loaf of bread, take two."
"Only one. It gets hard and moldy before I finish it. I'll be back later in the week with more greens."
"Fine, see you in a couple of days. If you have any of those dandelion greens bring them, too. My little one loves the idea of eating weeds." He laughed a hearty laugh. She wrapped her shawl around her shoulders before she left; the wind still felt like winter even though the sun and stars announced it was spring.
`Today is his birthday,' she thought to herself. She hadn't thought about Hercules for a long time, but it seemed fitting to think of him on this the Vernal Equinox. `Maybe she should stop by a temple of Jupiter and leave a little something for his father' her thoughts continued, but she realized that a gift from someone who did not believe in gods would probably be looked at with disdain.
She though again as she walked home of the impression of her the villagers must have. She lived alone in a small house and grew vegetables from the seeds she had brought with her from Atlantis. He father had taught her as a child to save the best produce, clean and dry its seed, and save it for the future. Two-thirds would be planted the next year, but one third was always saved in case the crops failed. Even though the same amount of seed would produce fewer plants the next year, at least she would have crops. If the crops did not fail, she would mix the saved seed with the seed from next year, and then divide it again. She had had good harvests the three years she had lived in this village under the mountain by the blue bay, she wasn't too worried about this year.
Those in the village cared little about her seed saving techniques, but they loved the wonderful produce she brought to the market each week. Starting with the spring greens, she would progress into summer with an assortment of peas, beans, melons and root vegetables. The fall would bring cabbages, kale, and cold weather greens. While other farmers had these vegetables, hers came in a wide assortment of shapes and colors and bore the strange names of her homeland.
She had no real friends, which bothered some of the women and a few of the men. Those who approached were quietly turned away. She didn't seem interested in getting to know people or having them really know her. They only knew that she had come from Greece. It was not a town that asked questions, especially if you bothered no one and sold good wares.
She had a patrician air about her as she walked slowly and uprightly. Her long dark hair would blow in the breeze and flash a few streaks of gray. No one was really sure of her age. She wore clothes from fabrics she wove herself and colored with dyes produced from her plants. She took little from the village, except for the occasional loaf of bread or jug of wine, and gave a lot.
She stopped along the way and picked some wildflowers, included the weedy dandelions, to add a little cheer to her table as she ate a simple meal of bread, wine and greens. As she approached, she looked past the house and climbed the mountain behind it with her eyes. She thought of her homeland and a shudder went up her spine. When she looked back at the house, she realized the chill was not from the wind.
Sitting on a small wall in front of her house was a tall man with long brown hair. She recognized him immediately; he was still wearing the same yellow vest and brown leather pants. He sat motionless with his face lowered in his fists, as if he was crying or bearing the weight of the world.
"Hercules, Happy Birthday." After she had said it, it seemed so inane. No `good to see you' or `what are you doing here', but at least he knew he had not been far from her thoughts. Not if she remembered that today was his birthday.
"Oh, it is isn't it?" He looked up at her and again shared none of the normal meeting dialog. It was as if she should just have expected him to show up at her house today.
"I had no visions of you coming. I must not be in danger."
"Do you always choose to live under volcanoes? You are always in danger."
"It's the soil. I grow vegetables, and they grow best in the soil near the volcanoes. And I have you, and my visions to protect me."
"I hope, I hope, Cassandra."
"So why are you here? Quite a long way from Greece."
"Long story, sad story."
"Well, if it is long and sad, let's go inside. I will build a fire and we can drink some wine and you can tell me all about it." She wished she had taken that second loaf of bread from the baker.
He helped her by adding logs to the banked fire while she poured the wine and mixed a small amount of greens with vinegar and olive oil. It wasn't much of a meal for a large man, but it was all she had. At least the bread wasn't moldy and the wine was dark and dry.
"It's been a horrible time." He began and spent the next few hours, until the wine induced drowsiness could be fought no longer, telling her about a serious of events that would burden event the son of a god. His mother had died, and he had joined his father as a god on Olympus. When that did not work out, he returned to his journeys. Then, his best friend, Iolaus, had died in a far away land. After that Hercules had traveled north to Eire and then even further North. At each stop he had encountered new and different gods than those he had known in Greece, but in every stop tragedy had also haunted him. He had met another woman, and fallen in love.
`Why is he telling me that?' she thought and knew the answer was because she was his friend.
The woman had returned with him to Sumaria and Greece in an attempt to . . . the story he told about trying to save his friend's soul made no sense to someone who did not believe in gods. She wasn't sure why the new woman had left him in Greece either, or whether he still loved this woman; but she listened, holding his large hand in hers and letting a usually silent man talk to his heart's content.
"The wine is gone, the candles are stubs, think it is time for bed." She reached under the small cot in which she slept and pulled out a roll of linens tied with cord.
"What's this?"
"For you. I made this and keep this here in case you ever came to visit. You would need a place to sleep."
"Thanks, I think."
She tried to judge the look on his face. Had he really contemplated sleeping with her on that small cot. She doubted if it would hold both their weight, and still wondered if he had just contemplated sleeping and not sex. She wasn't good at this, because it was a look she had never seen. Cassandra was thirty- eight years old and probably the world's oldest non-cloistered virgin.
"You can roll it out over by the fire, tomorrow I'll take you and show you the wonders of Pompeii."
* * * * * * *
Thirty years later
The town, maybe you might call it a city now, had changed greatly in the past thirty years; perhaps that was why no one had noticed she had changed so little. Cassandra found it particularly ironic that a small town had grown up closer to the bay, inhabited by fishermen, had begun to call itself Herculaneum. It was as if the man she had come here trying to avoid had followed her and chosen to remain close intellectually in a way he never could physically.
Cassandra had purchased a polished bronze mirror in the same market many years ago. Every day she checked her face in the mirror and, after a few years, began to call it her magic mirror because the countenance that looked back did not seem to change. Even her hands that had toiled in the earth so many, many years were still the smooth white hands of a much younger woman, and now they were bedecked with several heavy rings set with gems. The produce business has been very successful.
In addition food for families and trade for bread and wine, Cassandra's vegetables were used to enhance the menus of inns, restaurants, and even brothels. She had laughed when one entrepreneur of such establishment had whispered to her that after they finished with the sex, the clients were often hungry and a portion of her vegetables gave them vigor to go at it again. She wondered if she should use that for a sales pitch to all her potential buyers, but actually the vegetables sold themselves.
Today she had brought seven large baskets of assorted produce to the market and transformed then into a pouch of gold coins. It was high season and the selection and quality were at their apex. It would be an easy task loading her wagon to return home this evening. Life would have been soft and easy, except for the fact that she had begun dreaming again.
She would be awakened nightly by the same dreams she had had as a young woman, the earth splitting, the fire underneath, her falling, and his reaching down to save her. She kept telling herself that she was just remembering past dreams, but she wasn't sure she was correct. In fact, she was fairly sure she was wrong. She also dreamed of huge clouds of ash and rivers of mud. She dreamed of people choking and houses being buried. They were certainly dreams to bring fear, even though she was certain they would also bring Hercules.
Today, when she left her house, she had grabbed the leather bag containing the seeds not used for this year's planting and the entire stock of seeds for fall crops. The frequency and magnitude of her dreams had made her more comfortable when her seeds were nearby.
For the past few days she had felt rumblings in the earth, but those were normal and they didn't seem any stronger than usual. Still she listened for the songs of birds and carefully watched the actions of animals. She knew they could sense things that humans could not. Periodically she looked to the top of the mountain and was not happy to see puffs of white smoke near the summit. You had to watch those volcanoes.
She had carried the last of her baskets to the wagon and was about to hitch the horses when she saw a man running up the road from the harbor. It had to be him, she thought as she looked at the recognizable body, hair and slightly different clothes, and figured he had to be thinking exactly the same thing about her.
"Cassandra? You are Cassandra, right?"
"Right."
"We have to get out of here right now. Get on the wagon and I'll hitch the horses. Got everything you need?"
She patted the two leather pouches, one full of money and one of seeds, then looked at the man who had taken the seat on the wagon next to her and patted him on the thigh. "Sure do."
He pushed the horses hard on the downward road to the harbor. A small boat was tied to the end of the pier. The white-haired crewmember had everything ready to go so that they could pull away immediately. The fast action was crucial because as the clouds on the mountain top had increased and turned dark in color. It seemed as if they were just safely under sail when the entire mountain exploded and a cloud of ash raced down its slope toward the village of Pompeii. It would only be a matter of time until a river of mud engulfed Herculaneum. This time the hero had saved only the one who meant something to him.
As they sat and drank and talked she learned that the crewmember was none other than an aged Iolaus who had returned once again from the dead and could still tell a tale or two of the adventures he and Hercules had shared. The three of them talked a lot the next few days; they seemed as interested in her world of vegetables as she was in their adventures and travels. Yet, as they sailed, neither she nor Hercules ever mentioned the word for what kept them different than that of their shipmate. She knew where his immortality probably came from, as he was the son of a god; but she wondered if he had any idea where hers came from, because she didn't.
"This island is the southern point of these Italia, it is called Sicilia. From here we can we can go left and back to Greece, turn right to Baetica, pass the Pillars of Hercules . . . " a slight smile broke on Herc's face as he explained the route, "and on to Cassandra's Atlantic ocean, or we can go straight too and run into Africa."
"I don't know where you are going, but I am thinking about staying here. This island looks like a great place for me to grow vegetables, don't you think?"
"But Cassandra, this island has another huge volcano. It is said to be the home of Vulcan`s forge."
"Every volcano is the home of some fire god, or so people say. But the same god that makes the fire, if you believe in such things, provides what you need to grow the best vegetables. Maybe this Vulcan and I can come to an understanding. It's a long way away, shouldn't bother me too much, and since this seems to be the crossroads of the sea, you will stop by and see me every time you are in the neighborhood."
"Every time?"
"If I find out you have passed me by I will be very, very unhappy."
Thus, Cassandra of Atlantis, Greece and Pompeii found herself on the Island of Sicily.
* * * * *
500 AD
He hadn't stopped by every time, but often enough to know that she was doing well. On his first visit he told her that Iolaus and died, at the age of over 100 years, surrounded by friends. She could tell he missed his companion and the life they shared, but he seemed to be ready to not be encumbered by the care the old man had required in his later years. On another visit he was on his way to marry a black-eyed Roman woman and go with her father to fight the Northern invaders. On yet another it was a Turkish woman who had won his heart. She had made him a new bedroll about a hundred years ago, because the replacement for the one she had left in Pompeii had disintegrated more from age than use.
The small farm she had purchased when she first landed on the island had grown and she had replaced the hut in which she lived with a nice house. As the years went on she not only sold produce, but also planted fruit trees and began to grow and press olives. She hired managers to run her business, but often would slip into the fields, disguised as a worker, to be close to the land and to make sure things were being handled the way she wanted them to be done.
When she contemplated the loneliness of immortality, she began to consider herself ungrateful. She things she had never dreamed she would have when she lived on Atlantis in that little house on the edge of the village. She had a beautiful home, a village that relied on her for food, and one good friend who would visit -- a friend who was also immortal.
They shared much, but there were things they never shared. He never told her of the birth of a child, and she wondered if he ever would have children again after his first three had been murdered. Throughout all those visits, he never once shared the bed in which she slept, or gave any indication, that he had any interest in doing so. She wondered what it was about her that made her so undesirable as to have kept her a virgin all of her life.
* * * * *
A thousand years later
Both visits and visions had ceased for as close as she could figure the last two hundred years. She wondered if he had finally died, or just lost interest in stopping by. In the years before his last visit, he had become a full time sailor. It allowed him to explore the world, and at the same time, by moving from port-to- port and ship-to-ship to hide the fact that he did not grow old. She wondered if he had found a place at some far end of the earth and just decided to stay there.
The volcano had kept its promise. Although it was almost in continual eruption, lava never threatened her land, but ash provided necessary fertilizers the production of good crops. Her lands now stretched from the base of the mountains to the sea and a man on horseback would take two days to cross their width. The biggest threat from the mountain came not from eruptions but from the bad weather it sometimes produced in the winter. She could live with that.
So on a lovely fall day, in the midst of the hubbub of the harvest, she was very surprised to see the large, still recognizable man, on the path to her villa. The only difference was that now he was dressed as a sailor and carried a large sack over his shoulder.
She watched the look of amazement on his face, which she presumed came from his observation of the bustling agricultural operation and not the fact that she had not changed in over 1,500 years. A look of amazement appeared on her face when he grabbed her and kissed her passionately; his new way of saying "hello" came as more of a shock than his arrival.
They sat in the courtyard of her villa and drank wine from grapes grown on her own lands. He held her hand in his as he told her stories of a "New World" to which he had sailed and from which he had brought her a huge bag of gifts: gold, silver and something even more precious, seeds.
He handed her withered slices of a dry red fruit, about the size and shape of a prune, and told her that if she could get the seeds to grow, carefully protecting them from spring frosts, in the fall the vines would produce hundreds of the red fruits, which could be eaten raw with greens or cooked to make the most delicious of sauces. He let her sample a seed or two from an assortment of dried pods that seemed to contain the fire of Hades or as it was now called, Hell. She held in her hand a small dark nut, wrapped in a golden netting, which he told her when ground would rival the spices of the orient. She could make another fortune on just the seeds he brought in the small pouch.
"So you think of me on these trips to far off lands."
"More than you could ever imagine. But most of all I think about how I have been a fool all these years."
"A fool?" Her eyes seemed to grow wide, maybe it was the wine.
"Cassandra. We have shared so much. I've always come to you when my life was going badly, came to you for something I could take with me to give me the faith and courage to find light again. I never realized, until this last trip, that what I took from you, what you gave me without reservation, was a part of your heart. I have been so cruel."
"Never. You are one of the best things in my life."
"Then your life must be . . . " He looked around at the lovely woman sitting in the fine house surrounded by fine things that she created with her own hands and brain, and realized he was about to say something stupid.
"My life is wonderful, and you are still one of the best things in it," she said softly.
"Even when I sleep on the floor by the fire."
"Well, I sort of thought, maybe this time . . ." she smiled, because he was smiling back.
* * * * * *
"But every women I have ever loved has died?" He said looking at her lying beside him in the morning sun.
"I guess, if you haven't noticed, it seems rather unlikely that I am going to die," she leaned over and kissed him, "or for that matter even grow old. You are the only one who understands that."
"I know, who were your parents anyway?"
"My mother died when I was born, or so I was told. My father died when I was in my late teens. So I guess I didn't inherit my immortality from him. Honestly I don't know. If I believed in Gods, I might say that they lost track of me when I left Atlantis and just never bothered to stop by again."
He laughed. Most of the gods he had known would have been glad to stop by to see such an attractive woman.
* * * * * *
Washington State, 1981
Cass Bellingham picked a few tiny alpine strawberries and popped them in her mouth. Their flavor was far superior to the larger berries that she had been growing before moving to the northwest. These had been grown from seeds she had saved for generations.
It had been quite an adventure that had brought her here. She had stayed in Sicily until the major eruption of Mt. Etna in 1669. Even without dreams or a dream lover to save her she had decided that she had lived there far too long. By that time tomatoes and peppers had become a permanent fixture in the Southern Italian diet.
She had moved to the new world and lived on several islands in the Caribbean owning and managing large plantations and amassing even more of a fortune. She considered herself fortunate to escape deadly volcanic eruptions like that of Mt. Pelee on Martinique in 1902 and moved to the United States.
After operating an apple orchard in Western New York during the two wars and the depression. Then she decided to take a break to attend several universities where she majored in areas as diverse as classics and agriculture. She had loved the 1960's and the world of long haired lovers who reminded her of the man she had shared physical love for a short time and had not returned for almost another 500 years. The emotions he had awakened in her made her more than willing to share her body with other men, although she reserved her soul for him.
One afternoon in a coffee shop she listened as a skinny folk-singer sang about a woman who always welcomed him and kept his sleeping bag rolled up behind her couch. Her female companion commented that it was the most sexist song she had ever heard. It was impossible for her friend to understand a man who kept a woman near him in thought, but only was with her when it was convenient for him. Cass tried to argue with her, but it was hard to make her point about the deepness of some friendships without revealing things that she could never tell.
Her life was full and complete without him. He was just one of those little accessories like the rings and bracelets she wore, but one which she loved dearly. Every spring she would buy herself a piece of jewelry to celebrate his birthday. Once in a while she would think she would catch a glimpse of him, in a bar, a crowd, or a televised incident. She could never be sure and hated to risk the embarrassment of being wrong. She never stopped anticipating. She wondered what he had become. He couldn't still be a sailor; and, still, he never came to her. She had not realized that the mountain that towered over the small plot of land where she grew her organic produce even was a volcano when she had moved there. There hadn't been a volcanic eruption in the continental United States for over 70 years. Two whole generations had grown up thinking of volcanoes as something in Hawaii or Alaska, or far off countries.
The warnings this time had come from the government and not from her mysterious protector. She had packed her seeds, clothes and jewelry and decided to leave the mountain before it was too late. There were those who decided to stay, but Cass was not one of them. She pictured a tall, longhaired, forest ranger somewhere overseeing evacuation plans, and wondered if he knew he was going to save her again.
* * * *
NEW YORK CITY, SEPTEMBER 2001
She lay quietly curled against his strong back and kept her laughter contained within herself. It was so good to see him. There had never been a visit where she had been so sure that she would have been safe without him. The closest she had came to a vision was that nagging feeling, as she shared a drink with her staff after work that evening, that she should get home. She resisted the urge to go to dinner or maybe dancing. Something was calling her -- or as it turned out, someone.
She had felt his presence as the cab pulled up outside her brownstone. He had to have been surprised when her trail had led him to New York City. She watched as he paid the driver and stared in disbelieve at her new environment.
"Hercules in New York," she had laughed. "Sounds like the name of a bad movie."
He had laughed, too, when he wasn't kissing her. She told him the whole story, how she had decided more people needed to know about her agricultural adventures, especially the preserving of the seeds some of which might be thousands of years old. Some of the old seeds had been almost lost, but suddenly there was a great demand for diversity. She had formed a society for heirloom seed preservation, written several books, and moved as far from a volcano as she could
possibly get.
The seeds were in the good hands of college agricultural students who planted them in hundreds of different microclimates throughout the world. The vegetables would have slightly different flavors and traits that could be tested, until each would be matched with that spot of earth that was most like the long forgotten island where they had first grown. Someday people might take them to other planets, other solar systems. . . It was such a grand idea.
Then they had stopped talking seeds and begun to make love. The night was long and soft, and eventually she had fallen asleep in his arms. Sometime in the night they must have shifted, because she was now asleep on his back.
"I've loved you so," she wanted to say. "Why can't you say you love me? Why can't we be together?"
* * * * * *
"Are you going to get up, sleepy head? You've slept through breakfast, how about getting dressed and I'll take you to lunch?" she called from her computer where she was reading the E-mails that had come in during the night. Most sites were reporting that the harvest was already in progress. It was going to be another great year.
"Sorry, Cass, I overslept."
"Yes, and . . ."
"I really didn't come here to sleep. I came to be with you. I am really sorry."
"Well, get some pants on and we'll go to lunch. You have to see this restaurant I have found. I think it will bring back memories."
They walked a few blocks to a tiny restaurant tucked on an alley. Inside were the smells of garlic and olive oil and the din of voices talking in Italian.
"Do you come here to eat or to listen, Cass? I know you miss Sicily, things were good there weren't they?"
"Things are good here." She tried to concentrate on the food, and on the man she was with, but a conversation at the next table kept vying for her attention.
"You must be enjoying your lunch," he said after she hadn't spoken for several minutes. "You haven't said a word to me. Hope you're not mad I overslept."
"Shush."
"What is it, Cass?"
"Not here, later. Let me . . ."
He let her listen while he finished his lunch. It was delicious. He wondered if the tomatoes were descendents of the ones he had brought her back so many years before. Knowing Cass, they probably were.
"What did you find so damn fascinating? I'm jealous. Of some little old wizened Sicilian."
"That little old Sicilian is Dom GiAntonio and you wouldn't believe what he was saying."
"What was he saying, it had to be interesting to keep you so enthralled."
"He was telling his companion that the volcano is about to erupt. We have to get away."
"Cass, that's Mob talk." She was surprised he knew or used that term. "It means that something is going to happen and they need to get out of town for a few days."
"But maybe it's not a bad idea."
"You know, I was going to suggest that myself, Cass. You interested in going to Las Vegas?"
"Why would I want to go to Las Vegas? I don't need money. I don't gamble. Why else would you want to go to Vegas?" He looked at her, standing with streaks of gray that had been in her hair for almost two-millennium and tears in her eyes that he had never noticed before.
"If our life isn't a gamble, Cass, then what is it?"
She shook her head.
"You've been gambling, ever since I met you, that one day I was going to say what I am about to say. Cass, will you fly with me to Las Vegas so we can get married. I don't want to leave you again."
She threw her arms around him and kissed him.
"Can it wait until Monday night, I have a meeting scheduled for September 10th in my office. I've having my seeds put in a cryogenic storage facility in New Jersey, I've kept them in the office safe, but somehow, I think I need a little better facility. I hope you don't mind waiting just a couple of days longer."
"Tell you what. I think I will fly out Monday morning and make the arrangements, get us a room, a wedding chapel, flowers, champagne. Do you have a preference on where you want to stay?"
"Anyplace but the Mirage, no volcanoes."
"How about the Bellagio, I hear they have a wonderful botanical garden."
She looked at him and smiled. He touched her nose and smiled back.
"I'll book you a flight and have a car pick you up after the meeting. Where are your offices now?"
"The World Trade center. I certainly have moved up in the world."
McJude
Finally finished May 13, 2003