Athena (pallas_athene_) wrote in labyrinthine_, @ 2015-03-16 20:30:00 |
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Entry tags: | athena |
[Closed]
The shop was closed; that, in and of itself, was unusual. Athena had set two of her most trusted owls to guard -- one at either end of her block -- to warn her if one of the family approached. She did not wish to be interrupted in this work.
She was upstairs in her private study, a place that no one but herself had seen in years, and for good reason.
The room was empty aside from the large round desk that she stood next to. The warm golden tones of the olive wood seemed to swirl and dance from the central pedestal as it rose to envelope a clean white surface that seemed to be made of marble.
Athena gently touched a particular whorl of wood and with a practically-silent sigh, the center of the table began to glow. A lit keyboard appeared at the exact spot where her fingers hovered over the interface and she quickly danced them in a complicated waltz across the letters.
As she accessed the drive given to her by Adestria, time seemed to blur, then slow, then stop altogther as she lost herself in data, in queries, in puzzles and pieces.
The names of gods.
Observations.
Trivialities.
She smiled. Yes, that suited him to a T.
Yes, that was a known vulnerability for her.
She frowned; some turning their divine backs on the family of old, preferring instead the darker embrace of the Society.
She swept her hands across the screen to focus in on a certain tidbit, then dashed it to the side when it did not reveal the answer she'd hoped for. As she circled around the computer, she drew data toward her or banished it back to the center of the circle. She glided barefoot around the perimeter of this new information, her sheer white skirts twining around her ankles as the beginnings of a story told in bits and pieces twined its way into her knowledge.
How had she not known this?
Imprisoned oracles, witches, low level divine beings.
Enslavement, torture ...
She would not stand for it, not in this time, not to those who belonged to the old world.
Time went on. Time stopped. She had no idea how much had passed, nor did she care. The knowledge drove her, nourished her. The computer was friend, lover, enemy when it did not give her what she sought.
Private servers. Hidden floors.
Plans, activities, allies.
They had known. About the missing. The thrones. They'd probably had a hand in it.
And yet... Just a tease, a flirt, the flitter of butterfly wings against her cheek but no creature to gaze upon when she turned her head.
So much hidden, so little stated.
Even the data was keeping their secrets and as much as she cajoled, she could not make it break its loyalty to its masters.
But if the data could not, maybe the sheep could. For as much as the drive would not reveal, for as much as the Society was keeping hidden, of this, she was sure: The masses had no idea what the Three were up to and the Three would play dirty to keep it that way.