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Post by pallas on Feb 26, 2024 22:15:06 GMT
Denise Bevin had just finished working a long shift on a busy ward when it happened.
The young medical student’s shift had just ended. She was exhausted, escaped hairs from her bun plastered to her forehead. She felt a little haggard, in all honesty, feet aching in her sensible shoes. But she didn’t mind any of it, not for the important work she got to do. Besides, she had gotten this far into med school and had every intention of seeing it out.
The woman approached the nurse’s station on the ward to sign out and say goodbye. In fact, she was ready to say her goodbyes to the nurse behind the station, Stéphanie, only to pause as she got close. Stéphanie was talking in a low, serious tone over the phone, a sense of urgency to her voice. Her expression was grave, some of her speech somewhat rapid.
Having noticed this going on, Denise quietly approached with the intention of silently signing out so as not to disrupt the nurse’s conversation. However, as she approached the desk and picked up the clipboard to sign out, Stéphanie appeared to notice her presence for the first time. Her eyes widened briefly and she lifted the phone away from her ear to address Denise.
”Denise! I was just about to call you over.” Stéphanie was saying, but there was already something in her expression that instantly rang alarm bells for Denise. Pity, maybe. ”I don’t know what exactly is going on, but you are going to want to take this.”
Those words had Denise even more worried, and it wasn’t helped by the fact that Stéphanie murmured a quiet ”I’m sorry” as she handed the phone over to the woman.
Denise took the receiver, noting that Stéphanie immediately moved away and seemed to busy herself. Doubtless she was just pretending to be busy so Denise could have some privacy. ”Allo?”
An unfamiliar voice came over the speakers, sounding distant and a little tinny. ”Oui bonjour, vous êtes Denise Bevin?”
”Yes, speaking.” Denise answered. She leaned a little against the desk at the nurse’s station, moving her free hand to the desk after realising she’d immediately been tempted to bite her nails. She was already on edge for some reason. ”Qui est à l’appareil?”
”Madame, my name is Simon Morel, I’m an officer with the Bordeaux police.” Denise’s stomach dropped, as if the man’s words had turned her insides leaden. ”I’ve been speaking with your family and I’m afraid I have to pass on some difficult news.”
”Yes?” the word was stacatto, flying out of her mouth like the wind was carrying it. She felt breathless.
It felt like an agonising wait before Simon Morel spoke again.
”It’s regarding your brother Laurent. I’m sorry to say that he’s been reported missing.”
She’d been dreading that it could be news like that. Of course, it could’ve been her father involved in some sort of drunken incident but she was always concerned about her brother.
”Missing? What do you mean, missing?” Denise’s voice had risen in pitch by this point, and she was aware of Stéphanie looking over at her briefly. Denise could feel that she was losing her usual collected, confident demeanour. ”Since when?”
”He was reported missing earlier today by your mother, but he has not returned home since he left on the evening of the 11th.” Simon explained, and the sympathy in his voice was almost enough to enrage her.
”The 11th?” Denise repeated ”But that was the night before last. Laurie’s been missing that long?”
”Regrettably, yes. Your parents say that it isn’t out of character for Laurent to stay with friends and so they did not become concerned until today,” the officer began. She couldn’t deny that Laurie did do that on occasion.
There was a pause, Denise trying to take a breath through the crushing feeling in her chest. He couldn’t be missing, he just couldn’t.
”Denise, this is very important.” Simon continued. ”I must be quite frank and say that it will be difficult to justify a serious investigation at this stage given that it does not seem out of character for your brother. If there is any information that you can give us-“
”It’s out of character for him to not tell someone if he’s going to be staying elsewhere,” the woman insisted, a little sharply because for her little brother’s sake she could not allow the police to ignore this. Maybe not their parents, he never liked to tell them anything, but he would always tell at least somebody. ”He’s very social, people should have heard from him.”
A pause. ”Ah, bon. And when was the last time you heard from Laurent, madame?” questioned the officer.
”Ah…. probably about 9 PM on the night of the 11th.” Denise replied, bewildered and in shock. She remembered because she had only a little earlier been wondering whether he was going to text her that day. It wasn’t unusual for him not to contact her for a couple of days, but the siblings were close so he didn’t generally leave it any longer than that. ”He was just heading out for the evening. I’ve had no contact since then.”
”He hasn’t expressed any intention to go to Paris to see you?”
”No, no. He’s not in Paris.”
She felt so helpless. She was out in Paris, more than 300 miles from home. Her brother felt far beyond her reach in that moment.
What on earth had he gotten himself into?
”Right” Simon’s words were punctuated with what seemed to be the sounds of pen on paper. He was obviously taking notes. ”I understand that this is frightening but I assure you that at the moment we are not particularly alarmed. There is every chance your brother is safe and well. We are reaching out to his friends and I am hopeful that will give us some answers. That being said, would you be willing to be interviewed so we can get a better picture of Laurent, his habits, his relationships?”
Not particularly alarmed. The police weren’t particularly alarmed. Those words made Denise’s blood boil. She was damn well alarmed. If it was enough to worry their parents, or at least their mother, Denise was certainly concerned.
But she knew it wasn’t this officer’s fault. He was just doing his job, after all. And to him it looked a young man who liked to party, of course he might be tempted to assume that he was just staying with a friend. Had maybe lost his phone or something.
She nodded. ”Yes, of course. I’ll need to make some arrangements, but I can be in Bordeaux in the next day or two.”
She’d need to make a lot of arrangements. Arrangements with her school, arrangements with the hospital. But regardless of the interview she would be going to Bordeaux, for Laurie’s sake and for her parents’ sake if nothing else. Nothing in the world could stop her.
She knew her brother. He was a much more vulnerable person that people might assume. Whatever was going on here, she didn’t like it at all.
”But you will take this seriously.” Denise said resolutely. ”If I am coming to aid your investigation I expect the police to show that you care as much as I do about finding my brother.”
That was her line in the sand. If Laurie was missing the wanted him found, and she wouldn’t take anything less than the police’s total dedication. If they tried to write this off as not worth looking into and wasted any more valuable time looking for him, she’d never forgive them. If he truly was missing, it could be the difference between life and death for him and she was well aware of that fact. Too much time had already been wasted.
”Of course. Thank you, madame. I will be in touch to arrange an interview for once you’ve returned to Bordeaux. In the meantime, I asked your parents not to contact you until I had an opportunity to speak with you myself but-“
”I’ll call them the moment I get home.” Denise answered.
”Thank you, Denise. I will get in touch with you again as soon as I can with any further updates and with the details for your interview.”
”Thank you.”
”Au revoir.”
”Au revoir.”
It was only once Denise shakily put down the phone receiver that she herself lean more fully against the desk, covering her face with one hand. She was crumbling, she could feel it, and she didn’t want to do it here. In the hospital, in her scrubs, in front of the entire ward.
The only place she wanted to be in that moment was Bordeaux.
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NOTES/GLOSSARY:
Allo: French greeting used only on the phone
Oui bonjour, vous êtes Denise Bevin?: ‘Yes hello, is this (lit: are you) Denise Bevin?’
Qui est à l’appareil?: ‘Who’s calling?’
Madame: Denise is unmarried so technically her traditional title would be mademoiselle/Mlle rather than madame/Mme but it seems mademoiselle is starting to be used less especially among younger people in favour of using madame more generally.
Ah, bon: literally ‘ah, yes’ but in this case is used as a more general interjection to show interest/that the person is listening. Something along the lines of being similar to ‘I see’ or in some situations ‘really?’
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Post by pallas on Mar 23, 2024 19:51:03 GMT
Chiara had been taking a moment for herself in the library, fairly engrossed in a book which she hoped might shed some light on how to mount an effective offensive against the exiled, when she heard them. Footsteps. They approached and seemed to stop at one of the bookshelves ahead of Chiara. The girl didn’t look up, but she could tell that the person had their back to her, facing the shelf.
”What do you want, Lucien?” Chiara questioned, without actually needing to check who was in front of her.
The figure ahead of her jumped, startled, before letting out an exhale which shook with what seemed to be laughter of shock and surprise as Chiara looked up at him.
”Fucking… don’t do that.” Lucien sputtered reply, the teenager turning to face Chiara now.
Her enhanced hearing had alerted her to his presence even when she was focused on reading, and she could identify him without seeing him partly because of his footsteps and partly from the fact that she could just barely detect an antiseptic smell clinging to him that told her he’d recently been in the Medbay. Or maybe not so recently; perhaps he was just there so often recently that the scent was buried in his skin.
”You just returned a book.” Chiara observed with a hint of dry amusement, leaning a little to the side from her seat in order to get a view of the shelf as if she’d somehow be able to tell what he’d just returned. ”Since when do you read?”
”Ouch,” Lucien replied blandly to the girl’s teasing, but held up his middle finger for good measure. As he dropped his hand back to his side he shrugged. ”I read when there’s something important to read about, for the record.”
Chiara raised an eyebrow, returning her attention to her book. ”You already spend all your time in Medbay or the training room, now the library too? Leave something for the rest of us.”
Lucien approached at that point, taking a seat opposite her. ”Chill, Blondie, your sanctuary of nerddom is safe,” the boy said. Chiara elected not to point out that he was also blond. But he paused, and Chiara could guess what he was thinking about. How the place was lacking Jason. She could feel the shift in the mood, and the look he gave her was much more earnest now. Cautious, because they weren’t close and he was wary of treading into personal territory. ”How’re you managing? With everyone gone?”
The question felt heavy, smothering. It almost reminded her of the feeling of playing hide and seek as a child, burying oneself under blankets or sheets and breathing thick, stale air. The answer was that she wasn’t doing great. Training with River was helping, giving her something positive to focus on.
Still, the most she could muster in answer was a shrug. Lucien seemed to understand all that wasn’t being said in that shrug, because he just sat back in his seat a little and nodded. ”Yeah, me too.”
She could understand that. He hadn’t really said so, but it was obvious to anyone with eyes and half a brain that Lucien blamed himself for Luka leaving. She could see why he thought that way, though it seemed a little self-indulgent of Lucien to think that way. Sure, his suggestion that he go to the exiled was more than likely part of it. But obviously there would’ve been so much more to Luka making a decision like that. What had happened to Theo, she suspected, also played a part. The way Cleo had treated her, perhaps another element. Chiara didn’t know, but what she did know was what this was about more than Lucien.
”So what are you going to do about it?” Chiara asked simply, fixing Lucien with her gaze. The boy immediately seemed to register the shift in the mood, sitting slightly straighter.
”What?” the teenager asked, though it was perfectly obvious he’d heard her.
”Luka leaving is not your fault. You’re not the only person she cares about, Lucien.” Chiara needed to make that clear first. It might sound harsh, but she didn’t mean it to be. It was just the truth. Chiara wouldn’t let Lucien undervalue how important Theo was to Luka too. Besides, it’d do him good to understand that not everything was about him. ”You’re wasting all your energy blaming yourself for stuff that isn’t your fault and not taking responsibility for stuff you should be.”
He was a good kid but to hear him tell it, none of his bad decisions were his fault. It was Cleo treating people like shit, or the pressure was getting to him, or something like that. She needed to get this through to him, because she did think he was a good kid. He had the potential to be a good leader because he cared a lot, and invariably was trying very hard to do the right thing. And she understood that he was under pressure, and he had every right to say he wasn’t coping. Nobody would blame him for that. But the ascendants had to be able to work as a team if they were going to survive. For that to happen, and to be a well-functioning part of that team, Lucien was going to have to make some changes which would require a switch in mindset.
She cast a glance at him; he was silent at that moment, and in fact seemed surprised Chiara had said what she’d said. They weren’t really all that close, after all, so Chiara’s gentle but firm holding him to account must have taken him aback a little.
”So,” Chiara repeated steadily, ”what are you going to do about it?”
If he really was going to make the changes he seemed to want or intend to make, how he responded to their current situation needed to be a reflection of that. This was his chance to put his money where his mouth was. And she did have faith that he would do that, but she needed him to have that faith too and trust himself.
Lucien matched her gaze. She could tell by the look in his eyes that he’d seen the challenge she had laid out for him.
”Lead, like I’m supposed to.” Lucien said, and it wasn’t often she heard his voice like that. It was serious, earnest, but she detected a weight in it. The sound of the responsibility he was trying to carry, the feelings about Luka leaving that he was probably trying to put aside.
Chiara shook her head. ”Sort yourself out first. You won’t do yourself or the rest of us any good if you try to lead when you’re not in a place to. But yes - then, you lead.”
He seemed to register that, giving a brief nod, but Chiara wasn’t done. ”And you do what’s best for everyone, not your need to prove yourself. You have people to support you, and we see that you’re trying and doing your best to balance being a healer and a leader. We just need you to focus your energy in the right places.”
Another nod from him. Chiara rose to her feet and headed to leave, pausing as she passed Lucien to briefly place her hand on his shoulder in reassurance before she left the teenager in peace.
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CHARACTER PROFILE IMAGE CREDIT: ElenaA via Picrew
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Post by pallas on Apr 18, 2024 18:25:55 GMT
FUTURE WRITING: NOT NECESSARILY CANON
Lucien was busying around the training room of the Australian pantheon, tidying away after a training session with some of his charges. Usually one or two of them would stay back to help him, and indeed one or two had hung back for this purpose, but this time he’d sent them on ahead so he could speak to their visitor in private.
Said visitor was helping Lucien anyway, always happy to have something to do. He worked on collecting the arrows in and scattered around the archery targets - mainly the former, Lucien was glad to note - while Lucien hauled some mats used for sparring back to one side of the room.
”You sure you’re still gonna be good to watch my lot while we’re gone?” River was asking, raising an eyebrow in approval as he noted a few arrows clustered together on one of the targets. They weren’t quite at the centre of the target, but still. ”Good grouping.” Lucien heard the other leader comment as he began to remove the arrows in question. He was right; if Lucien could just get the ascendant who’d fired them to adjust their aim a bit they’d make a pretty decent archer.
”’Course.” Lucien replied to the initial question, straightening up after moving the last mat to the side and dusting off his hands before turning his attention to the redhead. ”You and Laurie don’t have to worry. I’m a responsible adult.”
River shot him an amused look. ”Sure.”
”Well, I’m an adult, anyway.” Lucien revised. ”You just focus on the proposal. I’ve got your pantheon handled.”
It would be fine, anyway. Lucien had people he could contact if anything happened so he didn’t have to interrupt Laurie and River’s trip to France. Laurie in particular was looking forward to visiting his home country for a little bit and River had put a lot of effort and thought into planning a proposal while they were out there. Lucien wouldn’t mess that up. But if it really did come to it, it wasn’t like the guys couldn’t travel back to their pantheon immediately with their keys if there was a serious emergency that the remaining ascendants somehow couldn’t handle.
River put the arrows he’d collected back into their stand before returning his attention to Lucien. ”Thanks, Sunshine. Call me if anything happens.”
”Relax.” Lucien said, as if this was at all reassuring. ”It’s me, what could happen?”
Another raised eyebrow. ”Do you really want me to answer that question?”
Okay that was fair. He was more mature now but River had seen him do far too much crazy shit back when they were new ascendants. Still, he couldn’t help but smile at the fact that despite that joke, River trusted him enough now to entrust his pantheon to him temporarily.
”When are the others getting there?” Lucien asked. He knew River had wanted some people to be there for the proposal. If he wasn’t watching River’s pantheon, he would’ve loved to have been there himself. But it felt nice to be able to help River out so the proposal could happen, anyway.
”Denise is travelling down so it’s been arranged for her to stay somewhere the night before,” the Ares champion replied. ”And I’ll text Jason, Pascal and Echo before we get to the proposal spot so they can get there before us and hide.”
The keys really made organising something like this way easier than it would’ve been otherwise, Lucien had to admit. Well, it made it easier for everyone except Laurie’s sister, but she didn’t seem to mind the travel.
”Do you think he suspects anything yet?” Lucien questioned. Laurie was pretty attentive to River generally, so he might have noticed any change in River’s usual behaviour. But then he was also busy with his own plans for the trip.
River looked thoughtful for a second, clearly thinking over and reflecting on the last weeks. ”I don’t think so.” River sounded ever so slightly hesitant, as if he couldn’t be completely sure. Lucien had good reason to believe Laurie in fact had no clue. ”I’ve tried to make sure he doesn’t pick up on anything.”
”I’m sure he won’t have.” Lucien answered, ”He’s too excited about the trip in general.” That part was certainly true; Laurie was looking forward to spending some time away with River, and going back to his home country again.
”Probably.” the redhead agreed, a little tension leaving his shoulders at the reassurance. ”So if you come by on Friday morning before we leave, I’ll make sure you have everything you need before we go.”
There was a lot to know, in fairness. Lucien knew most of the ascendants in River’s pantheon and their abilities, but a few more details on what he was working with would be helpful. Plus he was sure River would want to give him some tips on running the place.
”I expect a full military briefing, War Boy,” Lucien joked, which prompted a slight smile, a shake of the head, and a muttered but affectionate ”Idiot.” from the other leader.
He was already fiddling with his key, prepping his portal to leave, so Lucien smiled and spoke again. ”Oh, and River?” the man looked up from his dogtags in anticipation of another question, but Lucien just added, ”Congratulations. In advance and everything.” Like there was any doubt Laurie would say yes. He and River were so happy it was annoyingly infectious.
”Thanks.” was the reply, ”I’ll send you guys updates and stuff.”
The two said their goodbyes, and it was only once he was confident River was definitely gone that Lucien pulled out his phone and started writing a text in a group chat containing most of his friends, save Laurie and River.
‘So what are we going to do about the fact that they’re BOTH planning to propose on this trip?’
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CHARACTER PROFILE IMAGE CREDIT: ElenaA via Picrew
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Post by pallas on May 14, 2024 16:36:17 GMT
Dillon sat quietly, turning the decision over and over in his mind.
Exile.
The idea of actually having to decide to do something like that had made Dillon feel sick to his stomach when it was brought up. Even more so knowing that the prospective recipients of this were Luka and Laurie. People he had once called friends. Still, the fact that contemplating the idea was difficult didn’t mean it wasn’t necessary. He knew how he felt about it on instinct, but he wouldn’t make such an important decision with potentially huge consequences either way without giving it considerable thought.
He was determined that he was not going to fuck up another decision.
Laurie. His fury at the meeting when Laurie’s betrayal had been revealed was beyond words. He’d betrayed the group as a whole, which Dillon couldn’t abide, and on top of that had hurt his friends individually. Everyone who’d cared about him. River was included in that - not that Dillon deserved to be able to say anything about hurting River.
The boy felt strongly that if they didn’t have loyalty in all this, they had nothing. They might as well hand themselves over to the exiled and end this fight now for all the chance they’d have of winning without it. And Laurie apparently had put his own survival above standing with his friends.
The room around him was full, but it was so silent one would be forgiven for thinking it was empty if they couldn’t see the others in their seats. Dillon cast a glance up, dragging his eyes from tracing the grain of the wooden table, to the rest of the room. A quick scan of the others’ faces told him everything. The expressions on some of their faces told him they’d made their decision already. Indeed for some, they were so sure of their choice either way that for them there was nothing to think about.
For others it was not so. Most of the group, in fact, were having to think hard about this choice. Emotions rolled like stormclouds over faces, and the silence was heavy with thought as people analysed the decision laid before them. Even Lucien, normally the most rash person he’d ever known (aside from perhaps Luka), was sitting in a turbulent but contemplative silence. He had stuck his hands in the pockets of his jacket, presumably because of his habit of drumming his fingers against the table or his thigh when he was nervous. The Apollo champion sat as far back in his chair as it would allow, sinking down into the seat, and his gaze was distant but fixed on the floor. The boy looked troubled. The conflict he saw in the younger ascendant unsettled Dillon more than he thought it would. He’d never known Lucien to not instantly, on instinct and principle, know what choice he wanted to make. Nor had he ever known him to think things through beyond that.
This was a true test, Dillon could feel it. There was a risk involved in this decision. After all, Luka and Laurie’s keys could be used to access the Pantheon. That meant they had to be damned sure they were making the right choice. It was far too risky to be playing any games with whom they were allowing the privilege of being able to access the Pantheon. It could make them vulnerable. In essence, there was no room for doubt.
But he also knew the damage he had caused Laurie and River when he had voted for them to break up. He didn’t want to ever be the cause of pain like that again. Was he really willing to hurt people on the basis of a perceived risk to the group a second time? Dillon wasn’t sure he’d be able to take the guilt if he made that choice and was wrong again. And he’d be betraying Laurie two times over.
But what if he decided against the exile and they truly were a threat? Would be rather be wrong about them being dangerous or wrong about them being safe? As a leader he was supposed to protect the group and he hadn’t done that very well. He didn’t want to take any chances when it came to people’s safety. The fact was, regardless of anything else, the exiled had access to keys to the pantheon and people under their influence who could use them and that was dangerous.
He returned again to the matter of loyalty and trust. He’d seen for himself where Laurie’s loyalties apparently lay and Luka was famously murky with her intentions and she hadn’t exactly been on good terms with the ascendants when she left. Wherever Luka’s allegiances truly lay, there was no way of knowing how far she’d take things or how much she’d play people. She was a loose canon and that was concerning. Loyalty was everything, as Hera so often reminded him.
But who was he to talk about loyalty and trust? He had destroyed the trust the rest of the group had in him. He might have regretted his decision about the breakup almost instantly but the damage had been done. Dillon himself had been so wrapped up in the idea of being able to rely on one another in a fight that he’d missed the most important part. Being able to simply trust in one another in their lives, rely on one another as people. As friends. He had shattered the foundation to protect what was built on top of it. All of his choices had destroyed loyalty and trust. And worse, he hadn’t been blind to the hurt he was causing. Instead he’d judged it acceptable collateral damage to keep the group safe.
He’d done more damage to the group than Laurie and Luka had, if he really thought about it. Committed a greater betrayal and destroyed more trust - and nobody was talking about exiling him. If anything was going to destroy the ascendants it was the fractures in the group he and Cleo had caused.
Besides, what good was listening to Hera? She was the woman who punished anyone but her husband for his indiscretions. She harped on about loyalty but she was the goddess who had hurled her own son from Olympus because she deemed him imperfect. Her concept of loyalty was not one he wanted to place any stock in.
And it was very clear the ascendants didn’t have the full picture. Laurie had acted strange in the meeting, for example, sometimes like himself and sometimes utterly unlike him. It didn’t feel right to make a decision like this without knowing Laurie and Luka’s side of whatever was going on. In their words. And Laurie was… well actually he knew very little about what Laurie was truly like because the Dionysus champion seemed to take nothing seriously. What was the boy really like under whatever fronts he put on for his friends? Perhaps he really wasn’t who Dillon felt like he was - someone with more kindness in his pinkie finger than the rest of the exiled had in their entire bodies.
He knew what felt like the right decision, but still he doubted himself. Could he be being naive? Making another wrong decision out of a desire not to repeat the wrong decision he made before? Nothing felt clear-cut anymore.
He wanted to trust Laurie and Luka, have faith in them. But what if in doing so he was only condemning the others?
Dillon had no idea. But he had to decide, and he knew what kind of person he wanted to be. He took a deep breath, letting the choice he had made sit with him.
God, he hoped he was right.
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CHARACTER PROFILE IMAGE CREDIT: ElenaA via Picrew
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Post by pallas on May 21, 2024 17:28:05 GMT
Lane stepped off the front step of the Pantheon, tension leaking instantly from her muscles as she took in a sorely needed breath of fresh air.
It was her first time outside of the Pantheon since she’d returned from the Underworld, and the girl had been desperate to get some sort of exercise in. She had tried the treadmill in the training room, but even that felt stifling. Everything about it. The whir of the machine, the tang of sweat that hung permanently in the still air of the training room so there was no refreshment to breathing in, the indoors-ness of it all. It just felt suffocating. She had needed a real run. Not one where she wasn’t even getting anywhere - she’d had enough of that.
That was what had led to her stepping out in her running gear, hair tied back and headphones in as always. And she did what she’d always done when she felt like she couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t cut through the emotional noise. She had put on her favourite song and just started to run.
And this, this felt better. The beat of the music, the thud of her feet against the ground, the hammering of her heartbeat in her head set a rhythm to her thoughts that made them feel much less tangled. Much easier to sort. She drew in air that was fresh and vital, reminding her with the coolness that coated her lungs just how alive she was.
And she was alive. She reminded herself of that fact over and over again. After all, it was hard to ignore, and easy to verify. Heart still pumping, lungs still breathing, brain still thinking - well, maybe not as much as it should, but anyway.
At the same time, though, it was getting more difficult to ignore the reality of what was happening to her. The trip to the Underworld had left her drained, and ever since it was like her battery only went up to 90%. Not physically; despite being bedbound for a little after her return while Lucien fussed over her in Medbay (Lucien’s grumbly brand of fussing, anyway), her muscles complained little as she pushed her speed. No, this was something else. Drained on a different level, like she was sick but not physically so. She could spend forever arguing with herself and rationalising it, but she knew what was drained. Her soul. Its increasing tie to the Underworld was evident in the way the place had begun to creep its way in flashes into her dreams.
She was alive, and she was dead. She belonged to the mortal world, but also the Underworld. Schrödinger’s soul, one might say, and she might have been able to laugh at that joke months ago when the whole thing felt less real. She’d managed to convince herself she’d come to terms with it a while back, but being faced with the reality of her situation recently had proven that not to be true.
And now there wasn’t even Lane’s own feelings about her vaguely imminent death to think of. She had complicated things for herself, because now Daniel was a part of this too. She’d stupidly gotten close to him when she knew exactly where it was all going to lead. And wasn’t it so selfish of her to do that, knowing that he was going to be the one left hurt by all of this when she was gone? She was the one who was dying, but he was the one left behind.
And what the hell had she done, confessing her feelings for him but saying that they needed to talk before anything happened between them? That was possibly the worst way of handling it ever, led by her heart and not her head as she had been. It was a terrible idea to open any doors to something between them anyway, as she’d said, but this felt like a messy way of dealing with it. It could only lead to Daniel getting hurt. Not to mention, how the hell was she going to explain this whole thing without sounding utterly crazy?
She shook her head at herself. Okay, so maybe that last concern wasn’t really worth worrying about. After all, it wasn’t crazier than anything else the ascendants had seen. 13 foot tall talking wolf was hard to beat. She was pretty sure she had a decent chance of being believed.
She didn’t really know what to think or feel anymore. She did know she was angry at Hermes. He had argued that if it weren’t for him, she’d have died on the asphalt back in Denver, just another hit-and-run statistic. Hermes, he had told Lane, had simply given her another chance at life for a little while. An opportunity to do some good with one more shot. And while that was true, Lane couldn’t help but see it as him giving her a glimpse of things she couldn’t have. A tantalising view of a life she couldn’t afford to build or even enjoy because she didn’t have any time.
A pretty backhanded gift, if you asked her.
She had every right to be pissed at Hermes for playing with her like that, just because he could. Just because Hermes was physically incapable of not taking a single opportunity to fuck with anyone and everyone possible.
But mostly she was scared. Scared for herself, scared of what she was leaving behind for those she’d come to care about since being chosen. Scared that she had to face Hades, with no way of knowing if he’d choose to punish Lane for her guide’s slights. She knew Hades was fair, but she also knew that punishing Hermes himself could be the fast route to conflict between the gods. A headache Hades would probably want to avoid.
She was afraid of being forgotten, too. The ascendants were chosen for that very purpose, selected because they were people the gods did not think would be missed. Not a comment on their worth as people, as she’d repeatedly been assured, though Lane hadn’t yet discovered another way to take it. All the girl could hope was that she meant enough to these people that she’d known for less than six months for them not to leave her behind.
Lane paused in her run, music spilling tinnily from her headphones as she removed them, stopping to lean against a nearby tree. She braced her elbows on her knees, muscles aching and chest tight, lungs burning as she drew in air for a breathless moment.
Alive. She was alive.
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CHARACTER PROFILE IMAGE CREDIT: ElenaA via Picrew
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Post by pallas on May 30, 2024 16:15:45 GMT
Denise had barely stopped to drop her luggage at home after she got to Bordeaux. Unable to bear wasting so much as another second of the precious window they had where they still had a decent chance of finding Laurie alive, she’d left immediately for the police station. What had followed was an extensive and emotionally draining interview in which she’d divulged basically everything she knew about her little brother. His character, his habits, his social circles. All of the messiness she loved him for.
She’d come away unsure about her impressions of the police’s handling of the case. One of those interviewing her was Simon Morel, with whom she’d spoken on the phone. As he’d promised her, he at least seemed to be taking the matter seriously. By contrast, the other interviewer - a dour-faced woman in middle age whose lips had twisted into a judgemental pout as Denise had described Laurie’s partying lifestyle - seemed largely dismissive of the entire thing. It was clear that some of the local police, at least, considered this to be a waste of police time. A boy who frequently disappeared for a couple of days and therefore would surely return eventually when he ran out of money or got bored.
Disheartened by this, Denise had ignored her mother waiting in the hallway when she arrived back in her childhood home. She was too angry at her mother for waiting this long to report it to stop to update her on the interview. Especially when she had nothing encouraging to share. Instead, she’d made a beeline for Laurie’s room.
It was the first time she’d been in it since she’d left for med school years before, but upon opening the door it was immediately obvious that nothing significant had changed.
As the door swung open, she was hit with a wave of the scent of him. Faint, but there. The scent of her sibling that she’d known since they were young and could never hide from her even at times when it was overpowered by the reek of alcohol and tang of sweat from a night of clubbing. She’d detected it now even over the stale scent of his favourite cologne; a flatter version of the familiar notes of patchouli and musk along with something smoky and incense-y and some fruity notes which had grown sweeter, as if decaying, as the scent faded. It took a moment longer to detect the underlying scent of dust which reminded her that her brother had not occupied this room in days and hadn’t properly cleaned in longer.
Denise crossed straight across the small room to the bed, perching on the edge of messily-made sheets of a light dove grey. A deep ivy green blanket was spread neatly over the bottom of the bed. It clearly hadn’t been used, unneeded in the warmth of the summer. A couple of cushions, both a lighter and dustier sage green, had clearly once accented the bed propped up against the pillow. They now lay discarded, thrown to the base of the bed. She could all but see the frustration of a drunken Laurie who just wanted to climb into bed and found himself faced with the inconvenience of an extra barrier between him and his pillow. Pops of emerald, rich burgundy and purple in the decor added colour to the room.
The room had clearly been untouched since Laurie left, even to the extent that she could trace the trail of destruction left in the wake of Laurie’s getting ready process before he’d headed out to the club on that last night. His wardrobe remained haphazardly ajar, the hem of a garment that had slid off its hanger after he’d presumably tried it on visible as it stuck out from beneath one of the doors. Drawers partly open. She could even see a jacket slung over the back of a chair in the corner, which Denise could only assume Laurie had been considering taking with him only to decide against it. He wasn’t one to cover his outfits with outerwear on a night out.
It was still the room she knew, though. The marks on the walls from years of posters being put up and pulled down. The pen marks still visible peeking out on the baseboard behind his desk where Denise had drawn on it as a child - she’d gotten into so much trouble for that. Still just as it ever was. That, at least, was comforting to her. A reminder that while she’d been at school not everything had changed.
She couldn’t believe he was gone. The room was suspended in that whirlwind mess of getting ready, trapped in a moment as if he could walk back in at any second. And maybe he could - she had to believe he could. He could step through the front door and she’d come flying over to berate him for disappearing like that. He’d have no idea what all the fuss was about and he’d play it off as he always did, with a joke and a flash of one of his most disarming smiles until nobody could be mad at him anymore. His phone was dead, he’d say. What, were they worried about him? He’d apologise, say he’d got caught up with his friends and he’d completely forgotten to get in touch and let them know what was going on.
She convinced herself of that until she could almost hear the front door opening. Held her breath until she had no choice but to acknowledge she hadn’t heard anything at all.
But there was no way anything could’ve happened to her little brother. She had spent so much of her life looking out for him, because she knew him. She knew he was more sensitive than he wanted people to believe beneath the effervescence everyone knew him for. Laurie had always seemed to believe that if he just acted like nothing got to him, nothing ever would. Denise had always been able to see when he was smiling through some pain - sometimes she was the only one - and she’d always looked out for him.
But now it seemed like he had found himself in something she couldn’t protect him from.
It didn’t feel real. How many times had she watched through her own bedroom window as a teenage Laurie climbed out from the window on the far wall of this very room? Lanky, all limbs and all curls, negotiating the climb with a nimble, practised grace. He’d slip out and scramble neatly down, melting into shadows almost as quickly as she’d seen him. She’d always cover for him if the situation called for it, and she always had her phone by her bed just in case he got into some kind of trouble.
Now any time her phone buzzed, her heart would leap up into her throat for a breathless few seconds while she scrambled for it, only to find that it was yet another text from a colleague or a friend who’d heard what had happened. She found their sympathy more angering than silence. She hated their mild, milquetoast ‘if there’s anything I can do’ messages that they had no intention of actually acting on, and she knew some of them probably found the schadenfreude of this whole thing exhilarating. They could enjoy the thrill of whispered gossip about their friend with the missing brother, like Laurie disappearing was nothing more than something interesting and entertaining happening for once. And she knew she would be the talk of the ward back at the hospital. They’d all be talking about how sorry they were for her. She’d always hated pity.
But hating everyone else was just her way of avoiding blaming herself for this. She had hated that she’d left Laurie on his own with their parents. Their alcoholic father, their mother who had little interest in her children if they didn’t do things in a way she approved of. At the time she’d left, watching her home disappear with a wave at the door, she’d told herself it would be okay, that one day she wouldn’t feel so bad about it anymore. Now he was gone, she didn’t know if she would ever be able to forgive herself for not being there.
Her brother was vulnerable, always wanting to see the best in people and always getting hurt for it. She couldn’t help but feel that she should’ve been around to keep an eye on him. That she’d failed somehow. She hugged herself, clutching at her ribs as if she could somehow physically hold herself together.
Denise jolted at sudden movement by the door. Or not sudden - more likely she’d just missed the sound of her mother’s footsteps approaching. The older woman slipped inside, and Denise looked back at the wall across the room because she didn’t have the strength to look at her mother’s face in that moment. She wanted to be mad at her - she had a lot to be mad at her about - but if she saw her mother breaking she didn’t know if she could keep her walls up. Instead she sat frozen, staring resolutely ahead and trying not to notice her mother’s shadow moving like a rolling cloud towards her. She didn’t even react when she felt the mattress dip in response to her mother sitting beside her, though she felt more self conscious than ever of the threat of tears pricking at her eyes.
It wasn’t until she felt a tentative hand on her shoulder that Denise reacted. She shoved her mother’s hand away, and the outburst of angry emotion finally let loose the tears. Now they had started they wouldn’t stop until the salt burned her cheeks.
The woman said nothing, curled her shoulders further into herself and looked down at her lap. Denise did not often feel so vulnerable or so full of self-doubt. She did not often make herself so small. Her brother was always the one who was unsure of himself, though he made himself bigger and louder to cover it up. She couldn’t help but think that if Laurie saw his rock steady older sister like this, he wouldn’t recognise her. But she didn’t recognise her life without him in it. Her mother withdrew her hand but not completely, leaving it hovering uncertainly. Unsure what to do in the face of her daughter’s rage.
“Deney…“ her mother’s voice was faltering. She tried not to hear the emotional tremor in it.
Denise did not reply, just let the rage and heartbreak rolling off her in waves speak for themselves. She wanted to scream and yell at her mother but she was too heartsore to do it in that moment and had to settle for silent contempt. A pointed but unspoken blame.
She was aware of her mother moving, a moment later felt her hand around her shoulder again. She tensed at first at the touch, her mother staying statue still for a drawn out second as she waited for Denise’s reaction. This time, though, she did not push her mother away and instead allowed the older woman to draw her into her. It was only then that Denise let the first true sob rack her body.
It took her a second longer to notice the choppy movements of her mother’s own chest hitching.
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Post by pallas on Jul 1, 2024 23:08:28 GMT
Laurie stretched his legs out in front of him, a grassy bank gradually making way for the shore of the lake.
The lake where he would be getting married the next day.
The sunset painted the surface in kaleidoscopic refractions of copper, salmon and gold as the waters were stirred by a gentle evening breeze. The last few days the air had felt stiflingly heavy, made suffocating with the expectant weight which was finally lifted by a thunderstorm the previous night, breaking the oppressive feeling. He could almost feel the air breathing a sigh of relief, buoyant and light. All fresh and new.
He couldn’t quite believe how lucky he was to be marrying River. A man who’d put any doubt out of his mind about what love was. A man who treated him with nothing but respect and support. Who treated him better than he could’ve ever dreamed of being treated.
Laurie loved him. He was more sure of that than any supposed universal truth he knew, and he made damned sure River knew it too. There was nothing in which he wouldn’t support his fiancé - hours away, he reminded himself with a smile, from being his husband. Nothing he wouldn’t do to look out for him as much as he looked out for everyone else. And there was nothing he’d be afraid to face with River at his side. Not any difficult conversation or any pain, and certainly not any battle.
Many couples went into marriage with some questions still unanswered. Not really knowing where they truly stood when the chips were down, or how much work they’d be willing to put in to fight for what they had when things were hard. Laurie had no such doubts. He and River had already been through so much together that whatever they might face in the future did not worry him. They’d experienced every kind of pain and heartbreak and despite everything had found their way back to one another, River supporting Laurie during his recovery even while the two had not completely reconciled and Laurie supporting River in the same way after learning what he’d gone through.
The man watched the molten colours of the lake begin to cool, blues and lavender purples creeping in to tint the glassy waters. Before long the first stars would be visible, just the brightest and most hopeful ones at first. And then eventually there’d be a cloak of them across the entire sky. Like there had been on the night he and River had first kissed, smelling of cool evening air and woodsmoke.
He remembered the way the lake had looked, reflecting the same velvety blackness and glittering stars, stretching out before them so the sky seemed infinite. He knew Dionysus and Ares had cleared the skies for them that night, but sometimes he wasn’t certain they hadn’t slowed time a little too, because that moment had felt strangely timeless. Enveloping them in a seemingly endless pocket of time that blocked the rest of the world out.
The world had gotten to them, in the end, but it hadn’t been enough to keep them apart.
Laurie’s only doubts now were whether he was good enough for River. Whether he could ever deserve to be this happy. After everything he’d gone through he’d learned a lot, but it was still sometimes a battle to remind himself that he was worthy of good things. There was still a tiny part of him that worried that River might realise just how self-destructive and messy and fucked up in a million ways Laurie was, and that he’d want better for himself.
One day he might believe his own luck.
He saw his fiancé’s reflection take form on the surface of the lake before he heard River’s approach, or felt his hand on his shoulder. At the contact, Laurie looked up to meet his eyes with a smile.
”Hey, babe,” Laurie greeted as the redhead took a seat next to him, stretching his own legs out just as Laurie was doing.
River stole a kiss as he settled beside him, and it felt like Laurie was in the full golden blaze of the sunset again. ”Hi, husband.” came River’s reply as Laurie’s hand found his, their fingers interlacing. They were both facing the lake, theoretically, but neither was looking at it. The were too busy drinking in one another.
Laurie gave River a teasing smile in response to the comment. “Not until tomorrow,” he reminded him.
”I’m practicing,” River returned. Laurie chuckled, for the millionth time feeling as if he could pinch himself.
When he’d been in the depths of the hell he’d gone through, he’d never have envisioned that his life could ever so much as approach being this perfect again. And yet here they were, happier than ever but with the confidence that they’d faced enough dark times that they had no need to fear whatever might lie ahead.
”I came to say goodnight,” River explained, though the man had started tracing circles on the back of Laurie’s hand with his thumb while he said this, so Laurie could only really claim to have heard maybe half of what he said.
”Are we supposed to see each other before the wedding?” Laurie asked, but he immediately regretted the question. He didn’t give a shit about a single tradition that would involve them having to keep their distance.
River just chuckled. ”Do you want me to leave?” Before Laurie could answer the question, River was kissing him again. It was a lingering kiss, the kind that made him seriously consider never breaking away. Luckily for him because he severely doubted his lung capacity was up for the challenge, it was River who broke off the kiss.
Laurie took in his face for a moment. The face he loved, and knew for its every freckle. Every angle, every scar. River, the most wonderful person he knew. And the Dionysus champion smiled, and said simply, ”No, I think we’ve already had all our bad luck,” before giving him one final kiss.
And they talked until the sun had truly gone down, at which point River really did have to bid him goodnight. With great reluctance on both of their parts, it had to be said. But Laurie had waited so long just to be this happy, he felt fairly confident he could bear to wait until the next day to be married to the love of his life.
And he didn’t care about anything else.
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Post by pallas on Jul 14, 2024 10:51:09 GMT
After the meeting, Lucien had taken care of some quick tasks in Medbay before immediately retreating to his room. For the moment, he’d done his job, bringing the journal to everyone’s attention and debriefing them on his mission. Otherwise, the meeting had taken its toll on him, especially with the vote, and he needed some time alone.
Besides, when he was alone was usually the only time he could have anything like a semblance of a conversation with Apollo. The god did not do competing for Lucien’s attention with anyone else who happened to be around the boy if he could help it. Arrogant shithead, but anyway. Lucien did kind of want to speak with him.
He sat at his desk, a part of his room which up until recently had seen little to no use. Everything had changed after Hallowe’en, and for Lucien even more had changed since he’d spoken with River and since Luka had left. Now the desk bore notes from Pascal’s medical training, including hastily but accurately sketched diagrams, alongside notes he’d taken down after meetings and the occasional library visit. He’d even sat down and noted everything he knew about their enemies; every encounter with them and every little piece of information he knew. Plans he’d drawn up for himself to try and make sure he could make the best use he could of himself if it came to a major fight against the exiled, acting both as a medic moving around the battlefield and as a mobile ranged fighter using his bow. He also knew, after London, that he’d likely need to ask River to help him build his skills in a melee situation too, just in case something similar should ever happen again.
He’d never been an especially good student back in Chicago, most of the time, but only because he couldn’t put that kind of focus on things that didn’t interest him. He was discovering that when it came to his friends’ safety, he could be quite the dedicated worker indeed. And this time, it wasn’t to prove anything to anyone. Cleo knew who he was. They knew where he stood; he’d support them in trying to be better but only if they were genuinely trying, and he had no need to try and win their approval anymore. And River knew he was trying. That didn’t count for everything, but it counted for something. It meant he cared about making up for his mistakes and he was doing something about it. Sure, he wanted to make up for how his stupidity had hurt River, and he wanted to make up for the trust he’d broken among the others, but now he wanted to do this for the right reasons. He wanted to be better for himself and because his friends deserved a leader they felt safe trusting, and that was the long and short of it.
It was starting to feel like maybe, just maybe, he was starting to find his feet in this whole mess. He was beginning to feel slightly more settled and assured as a healer and a leader, a little less overwhelmed. But time would tell.
”You did well today, the ideas you brought to the meeting.” It seemed Apollo had decided to start their little chat first.
Lucien smirked. ”Is that a compliment? From the narcissist of Olympus himself?”
”Don’t spoil it, you smug little beast,” Apollo chided, ”Besides, my father is twice the narcissist I am and you know it. And Narcissus gave his name to the word.”
”He named it, you perfected it,” Lucien replied, but after a moment of quiet added, ”Thanks.”
The god did not reply beyond a hum of acknowledgement. Apollo’s words had set his mind at rest somewhat. He knew he wasn’t yet the leader his friends deserved, and he worried about that. He was trying to be better but did they really have time for him to be a work in progress right now? He didn’t know, but they also didn’t have time for anything else but for him to try. And he had resolved to give this all he had. At least his guide’s rare compliment told him that he was doing something right.
Lucien set to work trying to impose some order on his desk, which even he had to admit was really quite messy. The only notes that were well organised were the ones he’d taken during his lessons with Pascal, because he wouldn’t dare let them be anything less. They were in their own little notebook, which Lucien now moved to sit in the corner of the desk. But the other notes were mixed up and disorderly, sometimes because he’d written things out as they came to him, or because he had been trying to think and needed to move things around to visualise thoughts and ideas better, or because he came back to add to notes he’d taken during meetings as they later got more information. Thankfully he’d at least had the foresight to date his notes from meetings.
”Can I ask you something?” Lucien asked Apollo after a moment, as he checked the date on some meeting notes and moved the paper to its correct place in the pile he was now creating. He had a folder in his desk drawer that they could go into, alongside a folder for the other notes he’d taken. No use having the notes if he couldn’t find what he wanted when he needed it, even if he wouldn’t call his organisational system particularly sophisticated. Chiara would have colour coded it all in their own books or binders with tabs to find different sections. The girl would have had a heart attack at the sight of the desk before.
”If it’s about improving your abysmal filing system, I’d advise you to ask as many questions as possible.” Apollo commented, disapproval and amusement mingling in his tone.
Lucien stopped what he was doing, giving the god his full focus. ”You’re the god of prophecy,” Lucien ventured, Apollo’s following silence seeming to indicate assent. Lucien hesitated, ”How is all of this going to end?”
It was a question he’d often thought about asking Apollo, but dread of the answer had always made him keep silent. But everything seemed to be going so badly for the ascendants, having already lost Haleema and being constantly vulnerable to the exiled. Not to mention what Lucien considered to be the biggest threat to them - the infighting and division within the group itself. Lucien was afraid. Terrified, really, for everyone. And he was starting to think that if they were doomed to failure, he wanted to know, even if there was nothing they could do to change it.
Apollo seemed uncertain for the first time since Lucien had met him. ”Lucien, even if that was something that I knew, you know I would not tell you.”
He understood not telling him. Apollo had told him once before that he’d only ever give Lucien a prophecy if it was truly an emergency and there was no other way. Prophecies invariably led to trouble and misunderstanding and they weren’t a tool to be used lightly. But what did Apollo mean about not knowing himself? ”What do you mean, ‘if I knew’?” Lucien pressed.
Apollo sighed. ”I know how some things will end, but not all. I could know it all, if I wanted to. But my knowing would change nothing. I am not the Fates, I simply interpret their designs. I am as subject to them as any other god or mortal. And there are some things it is easier not to know.”
Lucien understood then. Apollo didn’t want to risk hearing an outcome that pained him without being able to do anything to change it. He was as powerless to change the way any of this would go as Lucien was. So he didn’t want to know and potentially have to confront his own inability to protect his champion and the rest of the ascendants. Gods didn’t like being made to feel helpless. And perhaps, maybe, Apollo actually cared a little.
”You’re afraid too,” Lucien said carefully, ”Aren’t you?”
”Gods don’t share their powers with mortals because all is well.” Apollo pointed out, which was as close as Lucien suspected he would get to admitting that he was indeed afraid. ”But I believe you all were well chosen.”
Lucien hoped that faith was enough. He did believe they all had the potential to work together as a very strong team, if they could learn from their mistakes. But he also knew they were scared, and what they were up against was no small thing. Lucien was far from certain that things would go well.
”Can I ask you another question?”
”You’re full of them today, kid. Fine.”
Ever since he’d seen the missing poster for himself on that shopping trip with Luka, with his sister’s phone number on the bottom, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Elara. Thinking about how she must be feeling with Lucien being missing and with their mother to look out for. He couldn’t imagine.
”My sister. Is she okay?” Lucien asked, feeling vulnerable the moment the words left his mouth. He’d spoken the words into the silence and instantly wanted to take them back. They felt too private. But he’d asked now, and at least he figured Apollo might know.
”Is that a question you really want the answer to?”
It was an answer he already knew, anyway. Of course Elara wasn’t okay. Her brother had been missing for almost six months now, and she’d been the only one caring for their mother in all that time. Lucien wouldn’t have considered himself close with his sister, they had their differences, but she was still his sister. He loved her and he saw what she’d always sacrificed for him. He knew she cared for him, and that this must be hurting her more than he could put into words.
Besides, like Apollo had said, some things it was better not to know the answers to Perhaps it would be less painful not to know how she was doing. Not when he couldn’t do anything about it.
”No.”
Lucien returned to his organising, trying to put all of the thoughts that plagued him out of his mind. They wouldn’t help him. They wouldn’t help him keep himself and the others alive, and so they served no purpose for him.
”Lucien.” Apollo’s voice again, and his tone was firm but calm. ”It will all be well. That is not a prophecy, I just believe it.”
Lucien wouldn’t have said he trusted Apollo’s opinion on anything, but in the moment that didn’t matter. He still felt the vice around his chest feel loosen a little.
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CHARACTER PROFILE IMAGE CREDIT: ElenaA via Picrew
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Post by pallas on Jul 22, 2024 22:07:24 GMT
CLANDESTINED WRITING
He had never forgotten his return home.
His father hadn’t come to collect Alex himself. No, instead he’d sent the captain of the royal guard to Levina to fetch him. Undoubtedly a trustworthy man, and in hindsight Alexiares knew that it was no small statement his father had made by sending the captain. It spoke volumes about the level of protection he was bestowing on his son and how seriously he took his safety, especially since during a time of war he was willing to be without the head of his own guard for a time. Not to mention that to sacrifice his main protector for a period of time meant Chadwick was telling Levina that he felt secure and unthreatened.
But at the time, as a child all Alex could think about was how his father hadn’t come for him himself.
Alex had been so afraid that his father would be angry with him, because he’d had to end the war because of his safety. The truth was that while he’d missed home, he’d been terrified to return. They had been kind to him in Levina, despite him being a hostage, and he was afraid of facing the aftermath of everything when he returned. Nothing had been his fault, but he also knew that fact didn’t count for much at all.
He remembered the tense handover. He hadn’t been told in advance that his father had agreed to the terms the Levinians had put forward, which he now understood was because they hadn’t wanted to risk any escape attempts once he knew someone was coming for him. They couldn’t risk anything before they’d gotten what they’d wanted. Instead, they’d woken him in much the same way his mother had woken him in the night when she’d handed him over to the Levinians. He’d been afraid that his father had rejected their terms or had made some new attack on Levina. Afraid that he was going to be made to pay the price for some misstep his father had made. He might have been young, but he hadn’t been under any illusions about the nature of his situation or the danger he was in. The child had received no reassurances to the contrary for the entire journey.
Eventually they had arrived at the designated place, admitted in by guards at an entrance. To him as a young child, the Levinian camp had seemed huge, a sea of tents rising from the ground like stalagmites from a cave floor. It had been dark, the light of fires playing against the armour of the men keeping watch at the edges of the camp. Their shadowy faces had passed in mere seconds of flickering light as Alex passed them, but he’d felt their eyes on him. They had passed through the entire camp in this way to reach the opposite side, and it was only at this point that Alex had been able to notice the other camp. There was a stretching gulf of darkness where no fires could reach, but then, across the void, flickers of flame. The solid shadows of more tents against the dark sky. And by some chance, the flames of one of those watch fires at the opposite camp licked higher in a rise of wind, and the firelight caught on a banner. Only for a second, and only for long enough for Alex to catch the colours on that bolt of cloth, but the child had known his family’s colours well.
It was an Oraleean camp.
The handover that followed was quick, and Alex was well aware of the unease in the air throughout. The rider had been handed a flaming torch from some attendant in the camp that Alex had not noticed approaching. Then he’d urged the horse into that stretch of blackness, the grassland that lay between the two camps. They had travelled at speed, grass passing into his vision and passing beneath them almost instantly, the blades like so many thousands of ghosts in the flare of the firelight. It hadn’t taken long for Alex to notice a matching pinprick of light moving out from the Oraleean camp. Moving closer, a distant firefly winding towards them at first and then a dark shadow that shone half-silver when ignited by the light of the torch. It wasn’t long before they had been close enough for Alex to recognise the armoured man as his father’s captain of the guard, and both riders stopped some distance from one another. For a long moment neither had moved, and Alex had been unable to see the rider that sat behind him but he could see that the Oraleean royal guard had his eyes locked on the rider and knew both were just silently regarding one another. Trying to determine who was going to make the first move, neither trusting the other to keep to their agreement.
Eventually, it was the Oraleean who had decided to initiate the exchange. He’d ridden forward and held out what seemed to be a roll of parchment, and in the clash of light from both blazing torches it was easy for Alex to make out his father’s seal. The rider had briefly handed forward the torch to Alex while he broke the seal and seemed to briefly scan over the words before putting it away for safekeeping and taking the torch back from Alex. He suspected in hindsight that the message would have been his father’s agreement to the terms and a declaration of an end to the fighting, sworn in the most serious terms.
“This camp is our last here.” the Oraleean guard had said ”We have orders to move at first light. None of our men will remain in Levina by the agreed upon date, provided you are returning the prince to us unharmed.”
”Be careful what you suggest about the honour of the King and Queen, sir,” the rider had warned, spitting out the final pleasantry. ”They kept their word. In Levina we do not harm family.” The young Alex had not in that moment understood the layer of meaning behind the man’s words. Wouldn’t understand until he arrived home and discovered what had happened to his mother. The words did not receive a response, both men still and silent as the Oraleean did not address the insult. They were like coiled springs, both ready to act at the slightest provocation.
It had been so quiet for a few moments that all Alex could hear was the breeze sighing across the open land, but it was over. The Levinian rider had seemed satisfied with the arrangement and Alex was handed over from one person to the other. Just like that, the war was ended and Alex was going home.
He’d had no idea what he was going to find upon his return. His mother convicted of treason, his standing destroyed. Everything in tatters and completely irreparable. Nothing the same again.
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He was a teenager the first time he travelled back to Levina, having convinced his father to give him more responsibilities when it came to managing Oralee’s relationship with their former enemy. After all, Alexiares was the only person in his father’s court who could actually say they’d lived in the country for a time.
“Do not disappoint me,” his father had said from behind the desk of his study. Normally he didn’t look up from his work when Alex met with him there, but on this occasion he had met Alex’s eyes with forceful meaning as he held out the parchment with Alex’s briefing on it. The teenager had stepped forward, reaching out his hand to take it. Just before he could take it, the king pulled the paper back slightly and reached out with his free hand to grab Alex’s wrist. “Alexiares, I mean it,” the king’s grip had told every bit how much he meant it, ”I am trusting you. Do not make me regret it.”
”I won’t,” Alex insisted, wrenching his hand back from his father’s grip, ”though it’s a shame; disappointment really is my specialty.”
The king did not seem the slightest bit amused by his teenage son’s insolence. ”Why must you always choose to vex me when ‘yes, father’ would have been so much easier?” Chadwick grumbled.
Alex seemed to have decided without consulting himself that he wanted an argument that day. “Why must you always choose to insult me when hating me in silence is so much easier?”
”Do not be so dramatic.” Chadwick scoffed, as if even hating Alex was somehow beneath him. The boy knew that was a lie. He had not fallen that low yet, even if his status had been diminished by the stain of his mother’s treason.
”You do hate me.” the boy persisted, though he felt a tremble in his voice when his father met his eyes with a kind of fury Alex was familiar with. It didn’t stop him from standing his ground. ”You are the one who got me back, but ever since you’ve hated me for coming home.”
His father had no response to that. More importantly, he didn’t try to deny it. There was no point in trying to lie about something so obvious every person in the kingdom probably knew it.
”Why did you bother? You could’ve won the war and we would’ve both been less miserable.” He would have been dead, but still, he stood by his point. Less miserable.
The answer to that was simple for King Chadwick. ”Because you’re a Kinnaird. If I let anything happen to you, it tells every enemy in the world that this family is weak.” the man said, as if this were something any child should know. Right. He didn’t want to set a dangerous precedent. That made much more sense than the thought that he might have cared for his son a little.
”Of course.” Alex muttered bitterly. ”A matter of politics.” He didn’t know why he was surprised. His entire life had been lived as a political tool. He’d been born a political tool, him being taken as a hostage had been a political move, and everything else in his life would likely be determined by similar machinations.
Chadwick just looked at him evenly, unperturbed by his child’s anger. If he was this calm now, Alex knew it was not because his insolence that day would be forgotten. ”I told you ‘yes, father’ would have been so much easier.”
He wanted to yell and scream about what he’d suffered for their family. About how his relatives in Levina, though his captors, had been kinder to him than his father had been in many years.
There was a part of him that wanted to tell the King how much he missed the father he remembered. The man he was before the war, who had loved Alex once. His heart still ached sometimes with the old pain of a child who didn’t understand why someone who’d once seemed to care for him so much now disdained him so deeply. The pain of a child who didn’t know where his father had gone.
And there was another part of him, the part of him that still wanted to love his mother and forgive her all she’d had done to him, that wanted to call his father a murderer.
Instead, he just bowed. A deeper bow than was really necessary for him to give. And when he rose he met his father’s eyes with the kind of anger you can only find festering in deep wounds.
”Yes, father.”
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Post by pallas on Aug 6, 2024 21:40:54 GMT
Laurie was not the same person he had been the last time he’d been in his home country. He would never be that person again, the person Dionysus must have come down from the flawless opulence of Olympus to find in a grimy nightclub bathroom losing a night’s worth of cheap drinks. Not that, as he had come to learn, he’d really had to worry about Dionysus of all people judging a little messiness.
Since he’d been chosen, everything had changed, and he had changed with it. He’d been through so much that the magnitude of all that had happened hadn’t quite hit him yet. It would, he had no doubt of that. Like a great cresting wave ready to wash over everything and expose in a raw and harsh way, with a cleansing saltwater sting, exactly how his experience had left him. He didn’t think he’d recognise the person that remained.
After escaping from the exiled, it would be easy to assume he might have been able to finally let himself feel relieved. Sadly not the case. To feel that, he would’ve needed to feel safe, and he’d known that he was far from safe. Where to go for protection had been the question. Back to the pantheon had not been an option. Not for Laurie, whom they considered a traitor. Not for Penny, a defector from the exiled.
He and Penny had found somewhere safe, in the end. But there was somewhere else Laurie had felt he needed to visit. It was a risk, because he knew it was somewhere the exiled might expect to find him, but he didn’t care. If he didn’t go he wasn’t sure if he could hold himself together. She’d always known what he needed even when he’d had other ideas.
He’d never been to Paris. He’d never gotten to visit her there after she’d gone to medical school, though they’d tried to plan it many times. She’d always come home to Bordeaux to visit him instead. Still, this city felt more familiar to him than many of the places he’d been since he had been chosen.
He passed down streets so busy he wasn’t always sure he’d have space on the pavement to put down his feet when he took his next step. Every now and then from amid the city sounds and the low discordant thrum of constant mingling voices, he could sometimes hear some distinguishable snatches of speech. Even hearing his own language being spoken all around him again had him feeling a twinge, a painful, homesick kind of pain at being somewhere so familiar.
The streets got quieter, narrower as Laurie wove his way through the city. Not so blind as some of the tourists who could only half-read the signs around them, much blinder than the city residents who knew Paris as well as they knew themselves. He knew at this time of day she would be working in the hospital, where she was on placement. Not the ideal place; he’d rather have met her at her home, but he couldn’t afford to stay in Paris for that long. Certainly not long enough to wait for her to finish her shift. Too exposed.
It didn’t take him too long to find the place. A large archway of sandy-coloured stone marked the entrance, built in a Baroque style and topped with a pediment like a tiny temple. The complex that unfolded in front of him as he passed through this archway was a mix of similar stone, classical-style buildings and much more modern constructions that were decidedly more of the 20th and 21st centuries, all surrounded by trees which stood sentinel along the pathway. The crisp winter chill was much more noticeable now that he was in a more open
space, and indeed the bare-leaved trees seemed to have also noticed the season. They stood still and quiet, undisturbed by any breeze. In fact, the whole site felt so peaceful that the only sign of the urgent bustle that undoubtedly would await when Laurie got inside was the lack of empty spaces in the car park associated with the hospital.
Once inside, he wasted no time. He knew exactly which department she was working in and he did not stop to speak to any of the staff who sought to direct him. Better not to talk to too many people anyway; he really ought to minimise the number of people who might recognise him. Knowing her, he had no doubt that she would have been spreading the word of his disappearance to anyone who would listen.
Then again, maybe she didn’t talk about it anymore. They’d stopped the search for him by now, he’d caught the news reporting on it. More than six months missing, and from the start they’d thought there was a good chance he’d fallen in the Garonne anyway. It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence in Bordeaux, especially with it being a student city. He would have been far from the first drunken young person on a night out who fell victim to the river. The police had searched for him for longer than even he’d expected, and he had a feeling she had a lot to do with that. She’d have refused to give up until she was given no other option. But maybe now she had. There was only so long a person could torture themselves with hope, after all.
It was this thought that finally made his nerves flare up as he got in an empty lift and pressed the button for her floor. What if this was only going to hurt her? What if he was opening up a wound she’d only just started to heal from? What if all he was doing was making her see a ghost? She might not react the way he hoped she would. Maybe she’d be furious at him for leaving. Not to mention that it was almost a guarantee that she’d ask him questions that he didn’t know if he could really answer, at least not without sounding totally insane. There was a reason the gods had wanted them to cut all ties to their lives before they became ascendants. It was cleaner, easier that way. And he was, as always, making everything messy.
But hell, could he really call himself an ascendant anymore anyway? He wasn’t an exiled, but he wasn’t with the ascendants either. He was barely a champion, given that Dionysus was still giving him the silent treatment and currently showed no signs of changing his mind on that anytime soon. So he really had no interest in following their rules now.
He didn’t have a lot of time for being afraid. The doors to the lift opened, and he had only seconds to decide whether he was going to commit to his decision or to go back down to the ground floor, walk right back out of those doors and abandon this idea entirely.
It was an easier decision than Laurie thought. He needed to see her, it was as simple as that.
The nurse at the nurse’s station looked perplexed at first, when he approached and started saying he wanted to speak to one of the student doctors and it was important. But when said her name, he watched the realisation hit as the nurse took in his face and no doubt noted the resemblance, mouth falling open.
Before the nurse could go blurting anything out in the middle of the very public, very busy ward, Laurie was able to intercept them. He explained in a hushed and urgent tone that he needed to see her, that it was important but the nurse couldn’t breathe a word that he was there to anyone. Thankfully the nurse, though wide-eyed and very much thrown off guard, agreed to it. He could only hope when he saw her he could get her to agree to make sure the nurse kept quiet. He already planned to tell her that if she told the police or anyone else that she’d seen him that he wouldn’t be able to risk visiting her again. That would be his condition.
The nurse directed him to a family room at the end of the ward. It was exactly the kind of thing Laurie expected; a small room with simple blue couches lining the off-white walls. A coffee table in the middle with a vase of what he suspected were likely to be fake flowers. A box of tissues, kept fully stocked in case bad news had to be given. A room that tried its best not to look clinical but still managed it anyway.
Laurie had barely had time to perch on one of those (not very comfortable) blue couches when the door opened and a harassed-looking young woman stepped into the room. She wore scrubs and her hair, thick like his though slightly lighter and lacking his curls, was tied back in a simple but practical ponytail. Looking at the state of preservation of her hairstyle, Laurie judged that she was likely several hours into a busy shift. He stood up, not entirely trusting his legs to hold his own weight.
He didn’t know what she’d been told to expect when she entered the room, but when those brown eyes that resembled his own so closely landed on him she stopped completely still. Laurie watched the colour drain from her cheeks. They stood like this, neither moving or seeming to breathe, for an immeasurable moment.
He must look different to her, he realised. He’d lost a little weight with the exiled and since he’d left, and he’d always been of a more lanky build anyway. But he had more lean muscle than when she’d last seen him, too, thanks to training. His hair was cut short, the curls shorn as much as he dared in a desperate attempt to own his own body again. When it grew back again the curls wouldn’t remember Ripley’s possessive touch. He probably looked older than she remembered, because he certainly felt it. And then there was the burn - the tightened and dyspigmented skin at his throat, the scar he was trying his best to heal. She never missed anything, not when it came to him. She’d see it all.
She burst into tears so suddenly it was almost startling. Flew across the room at a speed he thought must qualify her for at least a couple of Olympic events, and wrapped him in a hug strong enough to probably qualify her for a few more. Neither of them said a word, her head buried in his neck and him gripping her as tightly as he could, like she’d disappear if he let go. Her fingers were tangled in what was left of his hair. He could feel her chest moving as she sobbed, knew his was doing the same.
He cried for how much he’d missed her. He cried for how much his disappearance must have hurt her. He cried because for the first time in a long time, he felt like he was safe. With her, it didn’t matter how much of him Ripley had destroyed, because she’d always be able to find him. She was the person who could make it all feel far away for just a moment. She was the person who saw him no matter whether anyone else, or even he himself, could.
Her own pain was palpable. Her mix of bewilderment, shock, and disbelief rolled off her in waves and he could only imagine everything she must be feeling. This was a woman who had been out here in Paris away from her family, carrying the pain of his disappearance for half a year. She must have been sat down by a police officer and presented with the reality that she had to decide to either mourn him and stand a chance of moving on, or refuse to give up on him and lose him all over again every day he remained missing. He couldn’t imagine it. If anything could make him hate the gods, it was how his sister had suffered for the so-called gift they’d decided to bestow on him.
She released him from the hug, stepping back and placing her hands on his shoulders so she could get a proper look at him. The look she had on her face had morphed into every inch that of a doctor, appraising him with a professional eye. If it were anyone else, someone he didn’t know as well as he did her, he wouldn’t see the layer of frantic worry underneath it. Her lips pursed slightly when she got to his scar, and he knew she didn’t like what she saw. There was a question in her eyes when she looked at him, and that was when he finally let go of any attempt to keep himself together. He’d fallen apart many times since he’d been taken by the exiled and since his escape, but the primal instinct to survive had kept him from dissolving too completely out of fear he would not be able to recover.
He dropped back numbly to sit on the couch again, and within seconds she was beside him. He shattered in her arms, the truth of how utterly broken he was finally settling on him like a weight in a way it hadn’t done before. He’d needed her so much, for so long. And he wanted so badly to tell her everything. Recount everything he’d gone through. Every mistake he’d made, every pain he’d suffered, every piece of him that had been stripped away until he suited Ripley’s purposes. Every crack of doubt that man had widened into a chasm until Laurie couldn’t trust even his own thoughts and feelings anymore. He wanted to ask her who this person was that he didn’t recognise, because he thought she had a better chance of knowing than he did. She’d known him before he’d known himself, after all. He wanted to beg her to forgive him because he would never be the little brother she’d lost anymore, and she’d still have to grieve. He wasn’t a total stranger, but he’d be enough of one, and close enough to the person she’d known to be painful. He knew, for being a stranger to himself hurt him too. She was breaking too, and he wanted to tell her he was sorry for that, as if an apology would ever be enough. It wasn’t his fault, he knew that, but it still hurt that she had been in pain because of him and he could do nothing to fix what that had done to her.
I need you. I’m sorry. None of it was enough.
But in the end he didn’t have to say any of those things to Denise. She told him the only thing that mattered. She said it in the way she hugged him, the way she held him as they both cried and saved the questions he knew she must have because being with him was more important. She loved him, and she was there for him, and that was all she ever needed to say.
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Post by pallas on Aug 19, 2024 9:23:14 GMT
None of them had had any idea that night would be the last night everything was okay.
Chiara had never been much of a people person. Surprising for the daughter of a conman, maybe, but then the introverted and slightly awkward Chiara could never claim to have inherited his charm. A perfectionism and constant and uncomfortable awareness of herself, yes, those had certainly been a result of being raised by him. And, like her father, she was also rather a skilled observer.
So as both an introvert and observer, she’d sat apart as she watched the events of the evening unfold. Watched as closed-off strangers started to open up to one another and even started to laugh together. Back in the pantheon all the group had really done was argue at first, but it was obvious to anyone who really thought about it that the hostility was just because everyone was fucking terrified. They couldn’t very well lash out at the gods who’d kidnapped them, it being very difficult to have an argument with a voice in your head without feeling incredibly stupid, so they’d lashed out at one another because that was simpler.
The first fight had sobered them all a little, the fear of their common enemy bringing them together. Maybe that was what had finally made them agree on something; they needed some time away. Time to process their new lives, time to bond as a team and hopefully come back ready to make a plan to face the exiled. Take them down or at least give them a fight. Not for the gods, necessarily, because understandably there was very little desire among them to lay down their lives for some deities they’d only just met. But because they were worth more than that. Worth more than dying for a cause they had no stake in. And because they were more than what the gods saw them as; people they thought wouldn’t be missed. They had things to prove and a life to live and that was something. Maybe enough.
The blonde sat just outside the reach of the warm ring of light the campfire provided. All the better to take everything in without having to do anything so unappealing as talk to someone. That could be left for the more social members of the group.
Close to the blazing light of the campfire sat Luka, Lucien and Theo. Luka was the linchpin of that trio, Chiara had deduced. Theo and Lucien had little in common apart from the fact that they both seemed to get along with the little Australian. She was Loki’s champion, and no wonder. Chiara hadn’t known her long and she was the biggest enigma of those three but she thought she had a sense of the girl already. She was a force in motion, a disruptor, someone who kept everyone on their toes and could change the game in an instant. The kind of wildcard that could be the key to their victory or their demise, and Chiara wasn’t yet sure which. What she was sure of was that she couldn’t be more different from Luka. Heimdallr wanted her to hate her, the champion of her guide’s fated enemy at the end of the world, but Chiara was more sensible than that.
Theo, she also felt she was beginning to understand. The champion of Baldr who, like his guide, was rather gifted with charm. It reminded her of her father, though she knew Theodore was too good-hearted to be anything like him. No, this boy pretended to be confident but Chiara could spot a shiny veneer like that from a mile away. It was bluster, really. He seemed a lot more self-conscious than she thought he’d have anyone believe. And he didn’t seem to have as high an opinion of himself as he liked to make it appear he did. In truth, she suspected Theo only really valued himself as much as other people valued him. Made worse by the fact that he very much underestimated how much people valued him.
Then there was Lucien. A boy who’d come into the pantheon filled with anger, spitting threats like someone backed into a corner who could do nothing else. But he was the easiest to see through. A scared teenager was the same anywhere. He was a child who’d been given too much responsibility, being both a healer and a leader at the same time, and had no idea how to manage it properly. Desperate for approval, needing to prove himself but wanting to seem like he didn’t care. He wasn’t a complicated person. Even a bit of a cliche, if she were honest.
A motley group, she thought, but she was secretly pleased to see how they got along. Lucien’s guitar sat next to him, placed to one side when minutes before his music had been added to the forest soundtrack. The three were talking, faces animated and illuminated by the firelight as they shared some joke. Teasing one another. Luka and Lucien were young enough to still be in school, and this was the first time she could visualise them messing around in their classrooms as they might have been earlier on the very same day they were chosen, sharing looks with their friends when they were scolded by a teacher.
Laurie was just rejoining the campfire, the lively and boisterous champion of Dionysus returning to much teasing from the rest after going for a private romantic chat with River by the lake - the teasing mostly from Luka and Lucien’s quarter, the two along with Theo having not learned their lesson after serenading the two boys with an inspired adaptation of The Little Mermaid’s Kiss the Girl which had resulted in River chasing Lucien, guitar still in hand, through the forest. The teasing did nothing to stop Laurie glowing with joy or to dampen his usual exuberant spirits.
The blossoming romance between the young Frenchman and the redheaded champion of Ares was a new development with which their camping trip could also be credited. Based on what she’d seen of them so far it was a good match; Laurie softened River and brought out a side of him he didn’t often showcase, and River steadied but did not stifle the fun-loving Laurie. And anyway, they seemed to have the support of the gods, for the skies had conveniently cleared just in time for the pair to engage in some romantic stargazing. And who was Chiara to question godly approval?
River was sitting with Echo, everything about his usual demeanour softer as he engaged with one of the youngest ascendants. It was like the sweet, quiet Nephthys champion sanded off all his rough edges just with her presence. The sixteen year old had been drawing the scene Chiara had been observing earlier in the evening, the figures of Laurie and River sitting side-by-side on the shore of the lake effectively captured by the girl. Another good observer, Chiara couldn’t help but note. River leaned closer to admire the picture, his red hair seeming to blend with Echo’s for a moment. A sweet scene.
Bonds were growing everywhere. Lane’s bright hair was hard not to spot, and Chiara hadn’t missed how much time she’d spent with Daniel that evening. She’d even managed to sit still for more than five minutes in order to have a long conversation with him. A great achievement for her.
Jason was sitting having his nails painted by Guinevere, the two of them chatting about who knew what while the latter worked. Jason was someone Chiara thought she might be able to see a kindred spirit in. An intelligent boy who loved books, and Chiara could get along well enough with anyone who liked reading. He was steady and had a wisdom which belied his age, as he was also one of the youngest ascendants alongside Echo. But he was steady in a kind of way that told Chiara he was made of tough stuff. If she had to trust anyone or if she needed someone to have her back in a tough situation, she had a feeling Jason would not be a bad bet.
Guinevere was a kind soul, one of those who Chiara thought made up the glue of the group. A social butterfly as anyone could expect of the champion of Aphrodite, and beautiful inside and out. It was no wonder Griffin, the Champion of Achilles, could never seem to pull his attention away from her. She suspected they’d all have need of Guiney’s grace and good heart before they were done, not just her people skills. If anyone could bring them together, she could. And indeed she already was.
Laurie’s laughter rung out as he pushed Luka’s hand away when she tried to grab one of the drinks Laurie had brought and loudly and firmly proclaimed were only for those ascendants who were of drinking age. A rule he was determined to ensure the underage group members obeyed, despite Chiara not doubting for a second that he hadn’t exactly obeyed that rule himself as a teenager. Luka settled instead for grabbing the supplies Laurie had brought for making s’mores, a much more age appropriate activity that Laurie had provided as an alternative for the more adult fun of alcohol. Chiara caught the man looking over at River when he was sure the Ares champion wasn’t looking. He really had no hope of being subtle, though. Chiara had not known Laurie long, but she felt completely certain that subtlety was not a concept with which he had ever been familiar. Or even acquainted.
Guinevere and Jason were deep in what Chiara now felt certain was a gossip session, while Lucien returned to playing his guitar, a soft accompaniment to the crackle of the fire and the whisper of the leaves blending with the quiet conversation. Luka was already burning a s’more but didn’t seem to mind. Either that or she was experimenting with how long she could go before it set on fire, which was equally possible. Cleo, the officious Ma’at champion, was rejecting any concept of youthful fun but at least didn’t seem to have any intention of curbing anyone else’s carefree spirit. Joy could live another night.
Looking at the whole scene, the ascendants sitting talking in little groups and occasionally moving between the clusters of people to chat and catch up, Chiara was struck by the fact that if anyone saw them they never would assume these people had been strangers not so long ago. They looked like any other gaggle of young people on a group holiday together, sharing jokes. It seemed in that moment that there was a chance that they just might be okay after all. Perhaps they may stand a chance.
Everything that had happened since the day they’d been chosen seemed to float away on the breeze like the embers from the campfire. These people were some of the most resilient Chiara had ever met, and she didn’t think it was just because they had no other option but to try and live. These people were going to make what had happened and what would happen to them mean something. Make the gods sit up and take notice of these people they’d decided were disposable mortals. Make them regret ever seeing them as tools of war. These were people used to existing out of spite because fuck you then, world, you might not care that I’m here but I’m here anyway. And the exiled could hurt them all they wanted but there was no changing that fire in their core. It burned brighter and more obviously in some than others, sure, but it was there. Maybe, just maybe enough.
But in that moment, there was a sense that nothing really mattered. The responsibility that weighed on them all was left behind in the pantheon, abandoned for a moment as they took what they had no idea would be their last chance in a long time to be kids. There was no sense of finality about it, no feeling that they might not have an opportunity like this again. They were simply in the moment, a moment of laughter borne on woodsmoke and breeze.
People nobody would miss, determined to be something to one another if not to anyone else.
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Post by pallas on Aug 20, 2024 16:46:15 GMT
She sat sobbing on the rotting wooden floor. Her knees were drawn up to her chest, her hands clasping around her legs as her forehead rested against the cool, damp skin of her knees. She was completely soaked through, her clothes clinging uncomfortably to her body and her hair plastered to her scalp.
Gwen was terrified. Her bones ached, another thing remaining of this very first transformation aside from the seawater and her feelings of terror and confusion. Her body still remembered the intense discomfort of being in a form she didn’t recognise, suddenly finding herself in a body that wasn’t the one that had been familiar to her since she was born or indeed felt like her own. A feeling of being something other than herself, and it lingered with her like an aftertaste.
The girl had cast Nemesis aside, her original guide, and Ceto had become her new guide. Ceto had given many promises. Promises of power. Promises of revenge. Promises of belonging. And most importantly, promises to help with their new mission of making the gods pay for the losses they had suffered. Gwen had been thinking about everyone who was gone. Alice, Adi, Niko, Raffi, Lyn, Lewis, Evalynn. And she’d been thinking about Atticus, grieving for his sister, so angry that he’d abandoned the gods who had thrown them to the wolves. Of course she’d agreed to it. What it might mean for herself had been a secondary consideration.
But now here she was, and she’d just changed into something else, and it had been terrifying. Ceto had not been sympathetic. As far as the mother of monsters was concerned, if one wanted to have the kind of ambitions the exiled did, weakness was not an option. Besides, she was a mortal and gods, in her experience, had no idea how to have sympathy for mortals. They were too awkward, with too little idea of what it meant to think and feel in the way mortals did. Gwen had been completely and utterly on her own.
The young girl’s shoulders shook as she cried. The cold was seeping through her skin now, alone in this room. She hated their new home, this abandoned building that hadn’t seen any actual life in god knew how many years before them. It would take a lot of work to be liveable, and she doubted Atticus would tear his thoughts away from his revenge long enough to think about that work. Not for a while yet.
What had she gotten herself into?
“Gwen?”
Atticus’ voice barely felt like it reached her. She was aware of his presence beside her, and moments later felt the pressure of his hand on her shoulder. She looked up, suddenly hyper aware of the tears soaking her cheeks, their sting mixing with that of the drying saltwater. Atticus made a sympathetic sound and settled himself down beside her, sitting next to her and putting an arm around her shoulder. He didn’t seem to care at all that his sodden friend would be getting him and his clothes wet. That was just what Atticus was like. With her, anyway, and he had been that way with Alice too, before they lost her.
“I was so scared, Atti.” Gwen’s voice felt so small suddenly. The words were tremulous, and it was not the kind of way she liked to hear herself. It wasn’t a way she liked anyone else to hear her either, but Atticus was an exception. They’d helped one another through darker things than most people could ever imagine. Atticus’ grief for his sister was just one part of what they’d gone through. All-consuming for him, but still just one part of it. She was sick of being tired, frightened, and completely subject to the gods. She thought she’d escaped it, but Ceto had shown her that she hadn’t. Not at all. And maybe she would never, even if she lived through Atticus’ crazy plan.
He shushed her in a soothing tone. “I know, Gwenny,” Atticus was doing his best to reassure her, tracing gentle circles on her arm with the hand he had around her shoulder.
“I’m a monster,” the girl’s words were so quiet she almost couldn’t hear them herself, but Atticus seemed to catch them nonetheless.
His tone was firm, as if conviction alone could drive the truth away. “No you’re not,” the boy insisted. She didn’t believe him. There was no denying what she had been when she transformed, and she could see now what their mission was going to force her to become. She wasn’t so stupid that she could be comforted.
“You heard Niko, that day he...” the day he’d seen those things. The day he’d had a vision of what would become of each of their friends. He’d predicted every death, and as each of them later fell just the way he’d said, a twisted part of Gwen had wanted to blame him as if it was his fault because he’d spoken it. It wasn’t, she knew that. He just told them what he saw, and what he saw wasn’t his fault. But it was him who was the one who’d told them. “‘Monster, monster, monster’ he’d said. Looking right at me. I remember.”
He hadn’t been wrong about anything else. And how else could one describe the giant sea-creature into which Ceto had given her the ability to transform? How else could she describe the person she was becoming?
“There is nothing monstrous about you.” Atticus was wrong. There was everything monstrous about her. That ache in her marrow repeated Niko’s refrain of monster, monster, monster. She’d never wanted to become this, but the gods hadn’t given her any choice. If they hadn’t treated their champions with such disregard, watched them lose and die without lifting a finger, maybe things wouldn’t have turned out this way. Atticus wouldn’t have been prepared to tear down the gods to achieve his revenge, and Gwen wouldn’t have followed the only person she had that she could have called family. She’d follow him into hell, she’d told him. And she’d kept that promise.
For all it had cost her.
Fresh tears ran down her cheeks and Atticus held her closer. His presence was far more comfort than his words. “Ceto is not you, Gwen. She is a tool to get us to where we’re going. Neither she nor any other god gets to decide who or what you are. We’re done with that. And I say nobody who cares so much about the people they love could ever be a monster.” Atticus’ words were gentle, the way he always spoke with her when she was upset or afraid. Every bit the big brother to a girl who could claim no relation to him.
Even now he was idealistic, in a warped kind of way. He thought bringing down the gods would fix everything. Give him revenge, heal him of the pain from Alice’s death, make the world better. But Gwen feared that if he did not abandon his plan, she saw only the destruction that had stalked them so far.
The path he was walking was only anger and revenge. She still had hope that he could turn away from it. He was angry, and grieving, and she had naively thought that if she was there for him enough, he would begin to heal and he’d stop his war against the gods. She wasn’t so hopeful now, but she clung to the scraps she had left. He wasn’t totally gone. This boy who was comforting her now was still the boy she remembered first meeting after being chosen. His grief was festering but he was not yet past the point of no return.
But if he walked this path, she was following him. And she knew exactly what that would mean.
“That can make you a monster as easily as anything else.” Gwen answered. After all, it was her loyalty to and care for Atticus that had her willing to do terrible things. Ceto had nothing to do with that. Her powers had nothing to do with that. That was her refusing to let go of someone that she loved no matter where it took her. That and her own anger. The anger she too held for all they’d lost because of the gods.
Atticus said nothing to that. Presumably he had no way to argue with what she had said. Instead he simply stayed with her in patient silence.
“I never wanted this,” she found herself admitting, for no reason in particular. She knew better than to think that whether or not she’d wanted this made any difference.
“I know,” Atticus murmured, “I know you didn’t.” None of them had ever wanted any of this. Atticus had never wanted to go through what he had and lose his sister, of course he hadn’t. If things could have turned out even slightly differently he was sure any one of them would have done anything to make that happen.
Did that make them better people? Probably not. But it didn’t make them worse people.
“Come on,” Atticus encouraged, gently squeezing her shoulder before releasing her, standing up and offering her a hand. She wanted so badly to believe him when he said to her that everything was going to be okay. She trusted him more than anyone else. “You can get dry and I’ll get you something hot to eat. Everything will feel better after that.”
She doubted it, and she wasn’t hungry, but she took his hand anyway.
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Post by pallas on Sept 5, 2024 22:44:01 GMT
SILLY LITTLE FUTURE WRITING: NOT CANON
“Get off me, you little asshole.”
Lucien pushed Luka, who was sprawled across the couch they were sharing in the Australian pantheon’s lounge, trying to extricate her elbow from his ribs.
“Little?” Luka sat up indignantly, and any hope of the two of them focusing on the movie they were allegedly watching dissipating rapidly. At least she was off him now, though.
“Uh, yeah.” Lucien doubled down on his joke. “I’ll never understand how your Polly Pocket self manages to take up the whole couch.” It was his job to never let him forget how much shorter she was than him, even if it resulted in the sharp shove he promptly received in response.
“Big talk from a man who looks like he got his whole aesthetic from cringe 2012 teen movies.” Luka shot back, undeterred when Lucien tried to turn the volume up to drown her out.
He laughed when she took the remote from his hand. “Okay, fuck you then!” he exclaimed, “Never inviting you over again.” She stuck her tongue out, and he sensed she was about to make a joke about him inviting her to visit her own country, but both were distracted from their movie night antics by a ping on Luka’s phone on the arm of the couch.
She grabbed it, face illuminated by the light from her phone screen, before she sighed the kind of dramatic sigh that told Lucien that the text could only be from one person.
“Ugh, Cleo wants me to send them over some stupid document. What’s your wifi password?” Luka questioned, already replying to the leader in question if her furious typing was anything to go by.
“Uh, rainbow kittens on sparkle clouds” he answered as seriously as he could muster.
“Really?”
“Of course fucking not.” Lucien launched a cushion at her, which she batted away.
Luka paused for a moment then, obviously thinking, before making a decisive move for Lucien’s phone. “Fine, guess I’ll hotspot from your phone then.” Even though he knew from the way she slightly pursed her lips in determination what she was about to do, she was still too fast for him.
She was clutching his phone before he could stop her. He wasn’t worried, because a) she was just messing with him and b) she didn’t know his password to his phone either. But what he didn’t bargain for was a notification being on the lock screen. Luka’s eyes widened at first, but he watched her expression morph, her mouth lifting in a self-satisfied smirk as she looked at him, waving the phone in her hand.
“Who’s Claudia?”
Oh gods. The movie had officially been abandoned in favour of a showing of Relentless Teasing.
“Nobody,” was his far too defensive reply. He reached to try to snatch his phone back from his friend, but Luka just held it out of his reach, triumphant expression on her face.
“Nobody who put a heart emoji in her message to you.” And there went any hope he might have of somehow trying to deny it.
He groaned. “Ugh, you’re like a dog with a bone. Fuck’s sake.” Lucien didn’t think he’d ever seen Luka look as smug as she did in that moment. He sighed at her expectant look. “Look, she’s a girl I’ve been seeing-“ her suspicions confirmed, Luka looked like she was about to burst “- but I mean it, Luka, don’t make a big deal. I didn’t want everyone finding out yet ‘cause I knew you guys couldn’t be trusted to act fucking normal about this.”
He’d wanted to keep this to himself for just a little bit longer, have just a little more time to be with Claudia and get to know her before the others descended like a swarm of locusts. He loved them but they were going to all want to meet her and know more about her and they were all going to be so… them about it. He loved them for their quirks but whether Claudia would appreciate it was another question.
His plan had originally been to ease things in. Maybe start by having her meet just one or two members of the group. He’d been thinking perhaps Laurie and River, since they could hang out as couples and River, at least, could manage to act like a sensible adult. Then maybe he could start introducing her gradually to the others, especially people he was close with like Luka.
“What do you think we’re going to do, go all power-y on her?” Luka questioned sarcastically.
Lucien winced. “I mean…” he sounded unconvinced. In fairness to him it wasn’t like his friends necessarily had the best track record when it came to not fucking things up. He wasn’t saying they’d do anything on purpose, but to be quite frank his friends were the messiest group of people he’d ever met.
Luka hit him on the arm lightly, looking both offended and amused. Lucien corrected himself with his actual concern, if anything to avoid more light violence. “I know you wouldn’t do that,” he clarified “but I also know you are all incapable of acting like normal functioning adults and I don’t know if that’s going to scare her off yet.”
“Hasn’t put her off you,” Luka retorted, and this time it was Luka’s turn to get a gentle whack on the arm. “Alright, alright!” the Australian laughed.
But when she called down, she vehemently insisted on extracting a promise from Lucien that he would let her meet Claudia soon, to which the blond agreed. After this she was quiet for a few moments. But only a few.
“Lucien has a girlfriend,” the girl teased in a singsong voice, to which he almost had to push her off the couch to restore balance to the world.
And oh, good gods, he hadn’t told his actual sister yet.
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CHARACTER PROFILE IMAGE CREDIT: ElenaA via Picrew
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