Dante Lot (unseen_miami) wrote in olympian_rewind, @ 2010-08-14 19:58:00 |
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Entry tags: | dante lot, hades |
Who: Dante/Hades (solo)
What: Trial
Where: On the Beach
When: Recent
Warning: Song Lyrics
Dante sat on the beach in the dark of the evening. Despite his lack of confidence whether being here was especially legal, he decided that the legality was not a pressing matter. He doubted the police especially cared if people were actually on the beach unless gunfire or screaming was breaking the still of the night in company with the breaking of the waves. And if they did, they wouldn’t find him anyway; he was invisible. Perhaps a police dog could find him, hearing the gentle humming of the iPhone’s music playing from the earbuds…
He shrugged without care to any of that, looking out to the horizon where sky and ocean met – where the domains of Zeus and Poseidon met. The brothers of Hades. His brothers.
His brothers, but that fact was purely intellectual. Just like the fact that his name was truly “Hades”. It meant nothing to him. Not a stir of pride or sorrow… nothing. The actual sight of the glistening blues of the water and the sweeping violet and navy of the sky tinted by the silver of the passing clouds meant more to him than those names. They were beautiful and before him – his siblings, his own self simply didn’t exist beyond intellectual knowledge.
Shuffling through the songs on the iPhone, he settled on a grouping and then flipped through the photos. So many photos were on this phone of his children, of his family. Too many, Dante decided quietly; it read to him like a man desperate to keep his family close, shocked that he had them at all and needed constant proof of their existence.
That does certainly sound like Hades. At least the one from Hercules, like Vadimas said. And yet… He still felt nothing. Only one stirred his heart. Only the pictures of Dasha stirred him in any meaningful way. Something in him clearly refused to completely give up her memory for whatever reason. Dante just didn’t know and it was becoming a burden that he didn’t.
He sighed and lied down in the sand, staring up at the stars… at least the ones he could make out. The light from the city’s lights were especially powerful in blocking out many of them. This is a burden to them as they look at a ghost and a burden to me as I look at actors playing roles. Everyone is living a lie… They won’t abide this forever. Dahlia barely can now as is. It don't know if strength or stubbornness is sustaining her after I approached her with my name... He closed his eyes and brought himself into the interior solitude of his own self. It was quiet there and most importantly it was his. There was no dispute and no question about that. It was his regardless of what he could or couldn’t remember. They will either give up and reject me or I will give up and reject them… No. It won’t be their choice. No matter what I told Dahlia. It’ll be my choice alone whether I give them up or not.
I’m Hades. No one denies that. If anything, Tessia was surprised at me speaking true names like that. The truth was on her face. I’m a god that I can barely find a kind word about without going to a fictional source… He sighed again and opened his eyes to flip through the photos on his iPhone once more. And yet, I have four children… happy children. I have a foster son and a god child. Dahlia was so happy to see me when we met… Vadimas apologized for burdening me… Mel felt hurt when I played her own game of question answers… Clearly, I’m not a monster because I don’t think they’re all saints to be able to love a monster… Especially since they’re Greek gods, too. Something is missing.
The iPhone continued to hum along with its hard guitar rhythms as he pondered, trying to see every facet and detail to make sense of what was before him.
If it’s true a rich man leads a sad life
That’s what they say from day to day
Then what do the poor do with their lives?
On judgment day, with nothing to say?
If I am Hades, then I am the judge of the value of life. It’ll be me that determines whether that life dies at the shot of a gun or comes back from the dead. Mine alone. And it needs to be done now. I won’t drag myself or anyone else through this limbo any longer. We all recover or we all have to mourn his loss. He sat up with a purpose but with his eyes firmly shut. Come out, Rich Man. No more. People making choices for me… time for me to make the choice.
The image he conjured though was pure imagination. With lack of reference besides popular culture and his own reflection he could only imagine himself in a Grecian costume with the look of a forlorn puppy-dog.
And he knew it was wrong. It looked artificial.
It looked artificial because it was.
Completely.
That realization infuriated him. I said, “Come out, Rich Man.” Let’s see the sad life you live…If I am Hades, I can make you come out. If it hadn’t been a thought it would have been a growled demand as he snapped his eyes open. What he didn’t realize was they now had an iridescent glow. What he did know was that that he saw a man knelt before him seemingly in his mid to late twenties, dressed in a long Greek toga with the glisten of gold and silver threads along the bottom hems and a breastplate inlaid with diamond spikes. His black curls, which shimmered in the moonlight like the diamonds of his armor, were held back by the steel of his magical helm. The man’s black eyes stared through him but they didn’t look forlorn – that was much too simple. Instead, they flickered with an emotion that was a more of amalgamation of despair, rage, resentment, bitterness, loneliness and guilt grown out of the corpse of hope, optimism and trust.
Dante nodded. He knew that this wasn’t something pulled from some television show but from the truth. Hades. He knew it but he wasn’t swayed. He was an unbiased observer apparently of his own life.
The image nodded as he stood, but did not speak. Instead, his testimony began as a whole scene consumed him and the beach. Dante watched as Hades leaned against a rail of adamantine, accented with gems and topped with a wide beam of gold. He looked over that rail to a vast expanse – a kingdom with and of artificial day, perpetual twilight and eternal night, with gardens of incredible beauty that equaled the terrible horrors of the pit enclosed behind a high wall of bronze. A line of black ichor slipped down his face and mingled with the dark hair of his trimmed beard, but he paid it no mind as he focused all his attention on the oppressive sky of earth…
And Dante understood without words what he watched. The despair that no one cared about him. That no one remembered him. That was why his lavish palace was silent and empty… clearly as far as Hades could understand. That those above, the very people he loved the most didn’t care about him, or his struggles or anything other than the bliss their ignorance afforded them. His brother had grandchildren now and he still remained in the shadows… Resentment fueled him as he lowered his gaze to his outer court and to the huge beast that stared up at him – six eyes watching him. He motioned to the gates and the beast went to guard them. At least now, there would be a reason no one came…
The little iPhone continued to play, unaware of the mystical trial going on, unaware of the trial it acted as soundtrack for, the trial that it had unintentionally spurred on.
I’ve been shown up, but I’ve grown up
And I’m not down. Oh I’m not down…
The scene changed and so did Hades’ appearance – it shifted into the one Dante was more familiar with. The older English appearance. No longer was it the rooftop garden of a subterranean palace but that of a bedroom and Hades loomed over his fiancée… wife. That was the truth of what he watched. Wife. Dante would have felt like a voyeur but he knew he wasn’t watching the beginnings of a loving night of passion between husband and wife. He could see it in the confused despair of Hades’ face and the sadness in hers. “One last time...as husband and wife. Then let me go. Please Hades, ” she murmured as she draped her arms around him.
The scene instantly shifted with those words to Dahlia… Persephone… Wife no longer with her arms draped around another man on their couch before him. A man with wild red hair on the very couch that he had bought. Dante knew the resentment, hopelessness and resignation in Hades’… the heart that apparently was his, coupled with some vain attempt to make it tolerable with the thought: ‘At least she’s happy. Finally. She could never be truly happy with me…’ It was that thought that had held Hades in the chair and not attempt to disembowel the man as he carried her to what used to be their bedroom before his very eyes.
A life of abuse, Rich Man.. No wonder they waited so long to tell me the truth of my identity. Vadimas could probably only guess at the abuses to you and yet still framed it as lighthearted as possible to spare me, Dante considered in sympathy but nothing more than that.
On my own I faced a gang of jeering
In strange streets when my nerves were pumping out…
Perhaps in response to his thoughts together with the lyrics lightly humming but mostly ignored in his ears, the scene shifted once more before his eyes. Hades’ appearance converted back to the one of a man with dark curls in the prime of his life… even younger, as if he had not quite reached that pinnacle. His armor was not as grand but his helm was quite the same as he slinked through a camp of sleeping giants… Titans, he knew they were Titans, a two-pronged forked staff in his hand. The divine youth’s heart raced with excitement and caution as he tried not to make a sound, not betray his invisibility or their restful slumber. They would need that slumber… When morning came, these Titans would have a long day of fighting without their weapons…
Hades, unseen, smirked as he approached his sleeping father and held his tongue between his own teeth as he destroyed that weapon, too. He couldn’t wait for the morning… He couldn’t wait until he saw the expression on his father’s face when the realization struck him that all was lost…
I fought my fear in, I didn’t run
I was not done.
The thrill of victory folded into a new scene, the excitement transformed to utter dread as once more his dark haired appearance returned to the older blond one and was being held up by his throat by the searing hand of that same man with the wild red hair… only now he had wings.
Only now did he know this man was the Devil. His tormentor, his oppressor. The thief that had taken everything he had ever cherished and possessed in any way, with the exception of his young sons… Dante watched the scene unfurl. He watched the golden glow around his battered image and knew that it meant he was close to death; the fallen angel paid no mind to him as he fiddled with a needle in a silver box as he dangled from his fiendish hand… He paid no mind as dread and fear gave way and that needle stabbed the hand that held him.
I’ve been beat up, I’ve been thrown out
But I’m not down. No, I’m not down.
Dante could feel the image trying to shift once more and he raised his hand to spur it on. Go ahead, Rich Man. Keep giving your testimony. All of it.
With the permission, the scene did indeed change. It was no longer a land of flames and ice but the rain soaked streets of Miami. He watched as Hades wandered the streets, utterly lost and equally drenched, right to his bones it seemed from the storm. There was no doubt to Dante as he observed that the rain was washing away the scent of sulfur and the discomfort it brought to him, washed away the dread that had caused him to flee with utmost haste from the Devil… With so much haste he had no idea where he was now.
Eventually the pounding of the rain and the irritation of being lost finally grew to be too much and he gave up… surrendered to the need to ask for help and knocked on the first door he had the nerve to knock on. A small woman with a bright smile opened it and then pulled him inside from the rain…
Tessia. The mother of his sons. Hestia. His sister.
I’ve been shown up, but I’ve grown up
And I’m not down. No, I’m not down.
And as he watched Hades walk through the door, Dante quickly realized the scene had shifted seamlessly and he was no longer entering a home or even with Tessia. Instead, Hades was in the greenhouse in his backyard and knelt down next to Dahlia. She lied beneath one of the pomegranate bushes, plucking a white flower from its bloom and placing it behind his ear with a welcoming smile.
Again, he had felt tired of feeling lost, similar when he had been lost in the rain, but very different… even stronger as he took her into his arms.
So I have lived, that kind of day
When none of your sorrows will go away
The joy and relief of the previous testaments caught Dante unaware as the testimony he was witnessing shifted and he watched as Hades slid to the ground, gliding down the wall outside a locked basement door. A child’s wailing shook his very soul – Delaney’s wailing from inside the locked basement. Dante knew the flood of sentiments in Hades’ soul at the time – guilt, helplessness, resentment, rage, loss. The feeling of being utterly lost, utterly without recourse wrapped around Hades as a mantle and he watched as he fumbled in his pockets to find a small bottle of pills to make it all go away. He took a handful of blue and red pills and just took them without counting and without care.
Thoughts just had to stop.
Everything had to stop.
And the little pills quickly took effect. His trembling ceased, his thinking ceased…
He was just awake but numb…
Ironic. They think I’m not acting correctly. That I’m not myself as I am. At least I’m not a broken zombie, Dante couldn’t help but think to himself. How much pain and strife had that bullet caused and yet – When the events that led to the drug abuse occurred, Dante understood, rather than knew, that a flurry of outside circumstances had caused it. Perhaps that was the difference. It hadn't been one event like now but many...
Or perhaps, ironically, it was because of the pain was more spread out with the shot of the bullet into his brain…
Go down and down and hit the floor
Down and down and down some more
Depression
As if heralded by the music, the image a young blonde woman… Melpomene… flashed before him in the seclusion of some cave. She was lit by the light of flames that danced along his skin. Again his hair was black and his appearance young, but that eternal, endless youth had begun to give way to an unnatural process of death. Dante could see it clearly. A slow, painful, terrible one and yet he still did not glow. Not yet anyway. He knew that he waited for the glow to use the gun at his side.
She reached out for him, his arms, bleeding black from gashes that went from his wrists to his elbows, stained hers as she brushed against them to console him, to reason with the unreasonable.
“Your children,” she declared to him.
Hmm, the only words spoken so far you put into her mouth, Rich Man. Dante pondered to himself and then understood why. This was a trial for life but it hadn’t been the first. The last time Melpomene had been asked to be defense counsel because of his own personal bias.
Dante then smiled. There was no need for defense counsel anymore.
But I know there’ll be some way
When I can swing everything back my way
Like skyscapers, rising up
Floor by floor, I’m not giving up
Again he crossed his arms over his chest on the beach. Rich Man, you surrender to your misery with only brief interludes of what even you consider futile joy… not even joy. Comfort. You gave up on hope so long ago… No wonder people think I’m acting wrong. Perhaps I’m not you. What a wretched life you le…
But he couldn’t quite finish the thought as once more the image before him shifted. Dante watched as he held little Dasha as she squirmed in his blanketed hands just moments after her birth. She opened her little black eyes to him and froze him in her gaze. He had to remember to clean her in the warm water ready for her in the basin before wrapping her in a soft pink blanket. Even then she cooed up at him.
Born on the first day of winter, when the night is the darkness and the longest. But the night would never be as dark or as long as that night. It would become lighter from then on….
So you rock around and think that
You’re the toughest
In the world, the whole wide world
But you’re streets away from where
It gets the roughest
You ain’t been there.
There were no more scenes. All that stood before him was the man in his eternal twenties, dressed in the long Greek toga glistening of gold and silver and a breastplate inlaid with diamond spikes on the expanse of the beach in the middle of the night.
His eyes ceased to glow, not that he knew of it, and the image disappeared as well, leaving him alone on the beach. Plopping back down invisibly in the sand, he stretched, trying to relax while equally trying not to fall asleep.
Mystical trials were exhausting and he was certainly exhausted having reached his verdict.
Summary: Dante has finally had enough of being on an amnesic crossroad.