The stable door opened to the paddock, and there was a party under way.
Jules and Derrick had returned to mortal seeming, but Apollo suggested they might want their special harness, so that was present, a gleaming gemstone array strapped to the point just below where their human-torso met their equine-chest, and their skin was deep black with the bright gold of palomino over the top of it, covering their entire bodies. The evening was brisk, and there was a gusting wind as a storm rode the horizon, threatening to grow closer.
"Rick," Jules said, "We better check in with Mom and Dad. I think we were gone all day."
"Good point," Derrick answered, as the two of them were approached by a welcoming party of centaurs, male and female, all decked in flowers. There was a party, or perhaps a herd, of nearly a hundred centaurs in the area, all of them garlanded, some of them dancing a complex line dance under the light of a set of what appeared to be Hephaustus' workings: clockwork and bronze lanterns giving out brilliant light below them and rich colors out the sides. Moving among the centaurs, back and forth to tables set up across bales of hay, a small army of satyrs and nymphs were getting extra pay to work as waiters, carrying beer and wine and bags of oats to serving stations. The oats weren't being used directly as food, but instead appeared to be blended into mixtures of fruit and wine and honey to make pick-me-ups for the dancers who had grown tired.
"Welcome to the honored guests," the oldest centaur said. She was a Shire, and nearly as tall as Jules, and the only way to tell her age was that she had an aura of dignity - the centaurs of Olympus were clearly given some of the golden apples of youth along with all the other residents. She offered a garland of mixed leaves and flowers to Jules, and her companion, a stallion with her coloring and size, but less gravitas, offered a similar one to Rick.
"I am Korozanimae, and my son is Anorthumai. You have honored us by joining our herd, and by serving Apollo and Heracles at the gates of Olympus and in the sky you have done much to reconcile us with them. We would rejoice if you would join us in our celebration."
"Thank you," Jules and Derrick said in unison, accepting the garlands that were placed on their heads and twined into their manes.
"I'd have thought you were reconciled already," Jules said. "Hasn't it been a long time?"
"We came in under the protection of other gods, especially Dionysus, Demeter and Zeus," Anorthumai said, and shook a bell-covered staff. He waited for the others to pay attention, then called out, "Gather together and we will share our history with our newest heroes."
"Bring refreshment to our honored guests," Korozanimae said to one of the satyrs. He quickly returned with another three satyrs carrying what looked to be gallon jars of water, but smelled a bit of wine, apples and oats. The satyrs poured out a ritual splash on the ground (for Demeter) and started to scamper off -- that being the best way to describe their movement. Derrick called out to one of them, and asked him how they could contact their parents to let them know they were at the celebration. It turned out to be the same one who had been sent to warn them against returning to their suite because their parents were 'busy' and they wouldn't want to be there for that.
"At the Trojan suite? I'll take the message over. I think they may have been busy today too."
Derrick nodded, eyes closed. "Thanks."
"Attend ye all, the tale of the Kentauroi!" a new Centaur called out. He was a strong, dignified older male wearing a Stola wrapped around his human part, and a laurel garland in his hair and mane. His front legs, unlike the other centaurs, were human looking, though partly horse-like as they emerged from horse-shoulders.
"Chiron," Jules said into Derrick's ear. A centaur near Chiron began softly playing a rhythmic sequence on a drum, and a second began picking out notes on a lute, creating a wandering melody that never quite coalesced into a true tune.
"I was first of our kind. Cronos was my father, and my mother Phylira. In Thessaly I made my home, where those who were called gods made their legends, and where oracles and mysteries dwelled. On Peleon I dwelt, the mountain that became the homeland for Centaurs. Apollo was my foster father, Athena and Artemis my aunts, and I gained what small wisdom I hold from them. The second of our kind was the son of Ixion the son of Ares, and Nephele a cloud-nymph. His name Kentauros was given to all our race, but he was born wounded, and was healed by Apollo who gave him the form of a man arising from the body of a horse, in my honor. On the mares of Thessaly on the Magnesian plains he fathered the children who became in time the mighty herds of Centaurs who dwelled in Laconia and in Elis the home of the Olympic games. The third of our kind were born when Zeus spilled his seed on the island Cyprus, and carry horns on their heads. Another twelve were born of the fight between Zeus and Hera over his son Dionysus, who was guarded by the river spirits of Lamas. Those she transformed, making them into the image of the Cyprian Centaurs, in rebuke for attempt to tarry with Aphrodite. And those of us who bear horns on our heads are the children of the Cyprians. Of the Centaurs of the plains of India ... we know little. Dionysus made war on their behalf, but the tale is obscures, the stories nonsensical. Some of them returned with him, and joined us briefly, but returned to their homes where lived their wives, and are not seen since."
At this point the satyrs brought out more watered wine, and oat-cakes, but the music was still playing, and after a drink, Chiron continued.
"By this time, I had come to live here in Olympus. The tales of Heracles injuring me and Zeus placing me in the stars was a human story, though I was struck in the knee by his arrow, and it kept me from running for a decade while it healed. Had I been a soldier it would have ended that career."
"Did he really" "take an arrow to the knee?" Jules and Derrick said very quietly to each other.
Chiron smiled to himself as he drained half the jar of watered wine before him.
"These are the stories told about our people, and they are true, and they are lies."
The music changed, becoming somber, the drum beat slower and more of a trot than a canter. More of the centaur wine was passed around.
"We are the subject of speculation. What was the explanation for the impossible combination of two different animals, one clearly ruled by its beast nature, one aspiring to be ruled by reason? And which of the two were the humans? We represent the union in humanity between the divine and the animalistic, and they do not stop to think what that actually means. Humans are animals, like all the other animals, but gifted in a specific way, and horses, like all animals, are gifted in their specific ways, and this is how we all partake in the divine. We are gifted with more of both, more of the divine, and more of the human, and it is our blessing to be able to fully live out both aspects. The oracle told me years ago that the truth of our origin is that we were created from chaos like the Titans. We were brought into physical form when the agents of the divine, the Olympians who were here to shape and uphold the world, acted in ways that resonated with our dual nature. My father Chronos cheated on his wife Rhea and I was born of that union. Ixion desired to rape his grandmother Hera and Zeus trapped him with a cloud-spirit shaped in her image. Zeus desired to have sex with Aphrodite when she rose from Cyprus' shore, and she turned him away and he spent his seed on the earth. Hera cursed twelve nature-guardians and they took on the form of Zeus' most recent offspring. In each of these we were embodied and in each of these, plagued by the consequences until we could bring our natures into harmony, with neither one suppressing the other."
The music paused for a long moment, then resumed, slow, walking beats. Lute notes on the same beat only.
"We failed this struggle in our first years, unlike our brothers in India who did not live so much among the humans. I taught ethos to humans but did not leave my cave to talk to the offspring of Ixios. They did well enough, most of them, all of you thirteen who survive from that time, and your children and those who escaped the carnage."
"It started when Pirithoos, a human cousin to Eurytion the centaur, invited his cousin to his wedding, and served a wine laced with herbs and fungus to the centaurs, and it stole their minds from them. It was sacred wine, and they thought it safe for the Centaurs who had our own sacred wine. To the humans, it gave a pleasant dreaming that took them to a place of brotherhood of the soul, and to the centaurs it was a nightmare that put their blended nature apart, with the divine subjugated to the animal so that they became maddened. They did terrible things to Pirithoos and his bride and the women among those who came for the wedding. And in retaliation the humans there cut every one of them down, and called on all humans to murder the rest of their people. And they did go forth to do this. We fled, and I was driven from my own cave, and we scattered, to die or be taken by merciful Poseidon and gentle Dionysus to the refuge of this mountain."
Chiron drained his wine jug, and another one appeared. The music stopped again, and then began moving in a slow trot of drumming and a somewhat mournful wandering near-tune on lute.
"They were more successful than they should have been because no centaur expected that Eurytion would have done such a thing. We were unprepared for the retaliation. And then, Heracles visited our brother Pholos in the Pelopponesian mountain named Pholoe after the family of its resident. A jar of ceremonial wine, like this that we share, had been left for Pholos to bring to the temple for our rituals. It belonged to all of the herd, and Heracles demanded it as a guest to eat with his meal. Heracles has never been fond of meat without wine, and had the others been there, they would gladly have shared it, but he broke open the seal and began drinking it while Pholos was unable to stop him. He wasn't translated to his current role, but he was still much stronger than an ordinary centaur. And when the band returned, they attacked the thief, because the scent of the wine that had not been given the last blessing of Dionysus was maddening. Pholos would not fight his guest and thus invite the wrath of the Furies. He died. Most of them died. One fled to my home and Heracles shot him with an arrow that Heracles had dipped in the venom of the hydra. It went through his arm and into my knee, and being poisoned, it killed young Elatos and with most of the venom gone into his body, only made me lame on that leg for a time. Heracles came to his senses, of course, or I would not tell this tale, but his actions, and his half-brother Theseus' killing of hundreds of our people and the war that nearly killed us all, has stood between us since that day."
The drums stopped but the lute continued.
"Humans came, and we retreated, and when they kept pressing on, with the help of the Olympians, we removed what was left of our people to the reflection of Olympus, taken from all the places they dwelt, Cyprus, Laconia, Elis, and those who were scattered among other humans who had not been . Here, in the mountains between Olympus and our Peleon, in this reflection of the human world, we brought our people to a new home. We have rebuilt our numbers. We have made our own ethos, our way of being together as a people. And now Heracles, Dionysus, Apollo, and Hephaustus have granted our desire. We, like all who dwell in this reflection, are no longer quite mortal, but we could not have new children. When one of us would die, their shade would depart for a time, and then a centaur mare would find that she had become pregnant, and the one who passed would be reborn, with only their best memories from their earlier life. But now, you have come and you have new and different life, and Ananke has told us that this is so our people can once again grow in numbers."
Derrick and Jules choked on their wine. The animal part of them was aware of what was coming next, and the human part was not fighting it at all.
"Let all those who rule over fertility bless us, for these two strong stallions will be busy tonight."
And with that, the herd surged forward and pulled Jules and Derrick into their midst.