Skotádi was rather lonely and would have liked some children to call her own. She prayed to the gods, especially Hades, her patron god, to bless her with foals. With her prayers, she knew it was best to give an offering to please the gods she prayed to, so she decided to search for the perfect offering.

For the God of the Underworld, she travelled far and wide to find pomegranate blooms and pick them during the peak of the season in which they bloomed so she could dry and preserve them to keep them looking beautiful even after death. This was harder for Skotádi than for most other hippoi because Skotádi was mostly blind, so she could only see and work by the light of the full moon thanks to Artemis. Still, she hoped the offering she had in mind would be worth it.

The mare hoped it would remind Hades of his wife, Persephone, and her jurisdiction of springtime as well as the love he held for her. It was that kind of love Skotádi longed for; even if not from a romantic partner, then at least familial, unconditional love from family, which was why a foal would have been perfect.

Skotádi wasn't sure whether Hades had children, but she desperately hoped he could at least understand and remember what it was like to be lonely and to long for someone to love him as she longed for someone to love her. Perhaps that would have caused him to take pity on her and help grant her wish of having a large family who could love her and who she could love in return.

With the dried pomegranate blooms, Skotádi also dried pomegranate fruits so that they became hard. She also took cypress tree branches, mint plants, and white poplar to weave a wreath of sorts because she knew the cypress tree was considered part of Hades' domain while mint plants and white poplar trees were also sacred to him. She had to identify most of the plants by smell rather than sight due to her eyesight being so bad.

Once she wove her decorative wreath base, she added in the dried pomegranate blooms and dried pomegranate fruits for some color and variety, particularly because the blooms, even dried, ranged from a brilliant vermillion to burnt orange and were very vivd (or so she was told by others who she asked about her creation since she couldn't properly see it for herself). Perhaps Hades might not even have cared if the wreath looked nice since the Underworld was known to be a dark place, so perhaps the wreath wouldn't be very visible there, but at least it would smell nice.

Then, at long last, Skotádi's offering to the God of the Underworld - her wreath celebrating the cycle of life and death through the circle of branches, flowers, and fruits, was ready to be placed at the temple of Hades. The branches of the cypress and white poplar trees along with the green mint symbolized growth and youth, the pomegranate flowers represented blooming into the prime of one’s life, the pomegranate fruits represented offspring through each of the seeds as with birth and new life, and the dried nature of all the things represented how all things came to an end through the equality of death. Satisfied with her choices, the hippoi went to Hades’ temple to offer her prayers and place her wreath down as her gift to go along with them.

After the mare had given her offering to her patron god, she was coming back from his temple when she heard the sounds of festive revelry nearby. Going to investigate, she found there were several hippoi there, getting drunk and generally enjoying themselves and one another. Skotádi asked around and found out the revelry was in the name of Dionysus. This made absolutely perfect sense since, well, among the other things Dionysus was the god of, he was a god of revelry. Lonely as she was and since it had been such a long time since she had mingled with other hippoi, the mare decided to join in the fun.

Her attention was soon caught by a handsome stallion who seemed perhaps as interested in her as she was in him. Maybe she would see where things went with him that night. As she partook in the wine that the other hippoi drank, it occurred to Skotádi that she might as well make an offering to Dionysus as well, for he was the one whose party had allowed her to meet the starry-patterned stallion with the gradient blue coloring. She was thankful to him for that, along with the chance to relieve her loneliness in general, so she tried to think of what would be a suitable gift.

Though she enjoyed herself thoroughly that night, Skotádi worked hard the next full moon to pay a decent tribute to the god she owed for her fun. She found some dark, old wood that was sturdy and strong to use as a stand for a hanging lantern. She used some of the excess branches made of the same dark, old wood to craft the lantern itself and used pale, bleached bone to reinforce the wooden structure. It wouldn’t have done for the hanging lantern to have burned up because it was made of pure wood and easily caught fire, after all, so she created the heart of the lantern out of carved bone to protect the wood from any fire that might burn to provide light. There was a place carved in the bleached bone to put a candle or oil with a wick to burn. Surrounding that place was paper made of the thin, pressed pulp of leaves and bark for the firelight to shine through. The skeletal wooden-and-bone structure held everything together to create the body and foundation of the lantern that could hang using twine made from young vines from the dark wood stand.

The lantern was supposed to represent the life and joy that Dionysus’ revelry brought to the world and those who worshipped him. Like firelight danced merrily, it seemed to make even the very shadows cast by said light dance along with it as it flickered and swayed this way and that. Proud of her idea and her workmanship, Skotádi brought her offering to Dionysus’ temple right after she was finished, eager to thank the festive god for the fun he had granted her and with the hope that she might, in the near future, have more to come.

(Word count: 1098 )