it has floated away down a dark mythological river...

( Dear heart, I drink oblivion to you! )

[private; viewable to Rivers]

I felt it; a shift, a change in the tides. The black waters rose up, and for an instant...

I wasn't sure. Not until this morning.

They found a body in the Hudson. I was listed as the next of kin, so they called me. It was-- NYPD had identified the corpse as that of a Dr. Achren Psiakis.

She's back.

It seems another war is on the horizon.

I... I've been thinking a lot about things. Remembering the last war we fought. My recollection of that time may be hazy in parts, but there are other things I can recall all too well. The suffering, the bloodshed, the deaths-- and the kindness of a stranger.

This war is likely to be just as bloody, and this time each faction is made up of family and friends, people I do not wish to stand against.

So I won't. Let my domain be considered neutral ground: I extend my hospitality, as well as aid and succour to any who seek it, regardless of allegiance. I may not have the extensive resources of my previous benefactor, but you may nonetheless be assured of my welcome, and my ample ability to defend myself should anybody consider violence against me or any person I call guest.

That is my offer, and my promise.

Be safe, my family.

I'm jumping on the bandwagon with some drabbles involving Lethe as a child; guest-starring Eris, Nyx, Erebos, Hypnos, Acheron and various Eris-spawn. (I hope no one minds my borrowing them.)

( Time sprinkles Lethe's water with his wing. )

There is a condition among sufferers of Alzheimer's disease and other variations of dementia which doctors know as sundowner's syndrome. It's a puzzling one because nobody really knows why it happens. They know only that as afternoon wears into evening their patients will grow confused and agitated; they might wander and pace restlessly, they might become fearful and paranoid, even hallucinate.

The hardest I think are the ones who wander the halls lost, disoriented, anxious; dominated by a single purpose. Please, I want to go home. The abject sadness in their faces, the forlornness with which it is said - nothing you say can possibly console. You are a prison warden holding them captive, and they simply cannot comprehend what motive you could possibly have for this cruelty. Why should you keep them from the house they do not recall having sold, the husband and siblings they cannot remember burying, the little dog whose long-past death they forget?

How miserable a thing to torture oneself so, unable to grasp the notion that the life they are pining for no longer exists. How easy it would be to put an end to that misery - such a simple matter to reach in and pluck out those fears, taking the upsetting images of that unattainable home into Oblivion.

But would that do it? Would the loss of those indistinct memories cure them of all their worries? I wonder.

Doctors are divided on why certain humans experience sundowner's. Hormonal imbalance is one theory. Others have suggested fatigue, seasonal affective disorder, an anxiety brought on by the dimming light, or the accumulation of too many sensory stimuli during the day. It could be one or all of those, or none; I'm not medically qualified enough to make that judgment.

But I do know this. There is no sunrise or sundown in the Underworld, where Grandmother Night presides always. The river Lethe flows in perpetual twilight and its shores are ever ruled by Sleep.

Yet still there comes a time in each unending night as the world above settles down around its evening meal or lays its collective head down on its pillow, when the shades grow-- less restful in their aimless wanderings of my shores. There is no reason for them to do so. They feel no fatigue, for in death - for these lucky ones, at least - there is only rest and they are never too far from Hypnos' embrace. They can't fear the dark as they've no memory of the light.

They've no memory of anything at all, washed clean of every earthly pleasure and pain by my waters. They can't remember the places they once called home, or the husbands and wives and children they would once return to, or the responsibilities they would now have been attending do. But still there is an instinctual part of them that suspects - knows - that there is somewhere else they ought to be.

It fades quickly. The resident retires to his or her bed, the shades return to their half-slumbering wanders.

But I watch it sometimes, and I wonder.

( A slim envelope finds its way to Nyx's doorstep during the twilight hours. )

[private]

She...

She is gone.

Silent Akherôn, my strong river-sister of the dark waters and the dewy, lotus-covered shores. She has left this world.

Oh Akhe, what has she done to you? And why in Hades didn't you say anything to your sister? I could have been there, could have looked after you, just as you did for me when I was in need. I would even have taken it from you, if you'd asked; whatever taint Eris' rabid sister had sullied your waters with.

But no, that would not be your way, would it?

Be safe, my river-sister. Be safe, and cleansed. I hope you find what it is you seek.

[Kokytos]

Did you feel it? Brother, did you hear?

[private to the Phonoi]

Brothers, please. This has to stop. I know that slaughter is only in your nature, but these are not simple mortal killings. These are gods you're attacking, they're friends and family, they're-- guys, they're people I care about.

Please. Let the drug siblings be. Let our family be. If for no other reason than that your sister is asking you.

No good can come of this.

[/private]

[private to Eris and family]

Mother, what did you do?

[/private]

[private]

I can hardly believe what I'm hearing.

I have always had respect for him. Certainly in the Underworld he was nothing but fair to me and my river-siblings. But this -- rewriting the mythos, replacing memory, rltering identity -- it's wrong. More than that, it's obscene.

Does he know what he's doing? What he'll do to us all?

Gods. I don't know which is worse, the thought that Hades is moving forward in ignorance, or that he might have somehow... calculated this.

But I do know something about memory. More than most, perhaps. I know how deeply it defines us -- both the memories of our own, and mankind's of us, because of course in the end we are what they believe us to be. It's that which provides us with identity, with purpose.

And there is a time for forgetting, I don't deny it. I would hardly be here if there wasn't. And when the time comes, my waters will be there to take what's due. But memory is not something to be toyed with so-- opportunistically.

I've nearly lost myself once already. I can't let it happen again.

I can't.

[/private]

( Athena )

[private to Greeks and allies]

I'm back. Hi. Um.

So, I died. Someone killed me while I was... you know.

Can... someone fill me in? I'm still not even entirely clear on how long I was dead for, and before that -- well, I suppose most of you know the way I was before that.

Last I remember, there was... Mother was attacking us, and Marijuana was helping me. And then there was -- I don't know, another attack, of some sort? I think Mother was the target. That must have been why it hit me so badly, and she -- she was with me, but I think I lost her. Those last few days are still pretty jumbled, I don't...

Oh, hell. Is everyone alright? Mother? My family? Orpheus? Hermaphroditus? Marijuana? Harmony?

[/private]

It's funny. This journal. These words. They're mine, but they aren't. I suppose I must have written them, but I don't remember doing any of it.

Maybe it's for the better. I seemed... sad.

I met a man the other day. I say he was a man - he wasn't properly one, not really, but I forget the other word for it. He said he was my uncle, too, which was funny, because I didn't think I had any of those. I suppose he must have had me confused with somebody else. Still, it was nice, talking to a person.

Today I went to a shop. They say it's one shop, but it's so big, you could fit hundreds of little shops inside, probably. You can get lost in a shop like that, and I think I did, a few times. It didn't matter, though, because there were so many other people around and plenty of the ones I saw didn't seem to know where they were going, either.

They turned the lights off, though, a few hours ago. I don't like that.

I wonder where everyone went.

It feels like...

The water is rising. It's almost at my head.

There's pain, but it's... distant. Almost like it doesn't belong to me. Like it belongs to someone else.

I am nothing. I am nowhere.

Mother...

I feel... thin. Stretched. All of me is still here, but the fragments are spread out so far. They're floated away down the river, my river. I can feel them still if I concentrate, even touch them sometimes, but it's getting harder.

In a strange way, I feel closer now to my waters than ever I have before. I am the River Lethe as truly as I am Lethe the person, the goddess, but there has always been the lightest of barriers between river and conscious mind. It allows me to be - to swim my waters and guard my shores without losing all memory of my purpose, my duties.

But now that barrier is deteriorating, and I can feel the water trickling in. I should be afraid. The others are afraid, I see it in their faces. But fear seems so... troublesome. Such a small emotion. And the water is so peaceful...

It's not that I want to fade. I don't. But the further I am pulled down the river, the closer I am drawn to my centre. The forgetfulness that is my very being, that of which I myself could never truly partake. And a part of me - well, I wonder. What would happen if the waters were to rise up? If Lethe herself were, at long last, truly to become Oblivion?

I've been... forgetting things.

Nothing important (at least, I don't think so) but... there are holes.

Like... last Tuesday, for breakfast. Did I have toast or cereal? And what was the name of the man I danced with at that fundraiser three Aprils ago? Were his eyes blue, or were they more green? What was I doing on this day in '89? There's a whole week in 1912 that just isn't there.

You might think all these things sound small, even perfectly ordinary, but I... I never forget. Anything. I can't.

At least, I didn't think I could.