| Balloons [Narrative/Open] |
[10 Jan 2008|12:49pm] |
We are not the meant to be the King or Queen of either Olympus or the Underworld. We were not meant to be in that place of power. No ancient and powerful weapons were handed down to us by former kings or queens. Lethe knew that. She knew it in her heart and in her head. She knew they weren't meant for it. Wanted it? Partially. Not her. She didn't need it. She had her domain and all of its own riches. She enjoyed what she did and didn't desire to watch over more than she was already in charge of. Why did they all want more?
She didn't understand the need for power. She didn't understand greed at all. Not that she thought her brothers were greedy, they weren't For all intents and purposes; her brothers desired things for the good of all of them. The good of the family and the greater good above all else. They could all be fair and just people, and she loved them dearly. But their intent in this, still she didn't know completely and only assumed given the past, was not for their good any more.
The ire of Zeus and all of Olympus would turn down on the underworld sooner than later. She should have gone with Kratos. Even the most distant thought of him pained her. He was trying to forget her. She wouldn't let him. She couldn't. Styx would never forget her even if Lethe went to Olympus and started her own trouble. Kratos shouldn't either. Would it blow over eventually? Lethe pondered as she sat beside her river.
She didn't know. Didn't know at all.
She hated not knowing as much as she hated being forgotten. She wanted to see Cloey. She wanted to know what was going to happen in the end. She wanted Keys to show up and tell her everything would be fine. She wanted Aither to stop all of them from doing what they were doing but.. No one was there. Everyone was gone. And Lethe was very much alone. Dad was in Greece, as was their mother. Akheron and Styx not far, but not there. Not people she wanted to see.
Cocytus was..
Well he was Woe wasn't he? News he brought would do little to help her. Thanatos was on Olympus of all places and it drove her insane that he was there. He was miles upon miles away and she couldn't even make a step to reach him out of fear. Maybe she should just make everyone forget they were fighting. Make them forget everything that'd happened and give them all balloons.
Yes. Balloons. Balloons were the best inventions ever. Bright colors, sometimes metallic, shiny and they could fly. Fly without wings. No Float! Float like a boat in a river. Yes. Balloons.
They all needed Balloons.
Maybe she was losing her mind after all.
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| Paradigm Shift (Athena) |
[10 Jan 2008|05:48pm] |
The halls of Epidaurus had never been so busy with attendants and his children. Asklepios wasn't sure when, exactly, everything had grown out of control - but with two of the greatest deities in Greece under his care, he knew that it was. Something was different about this, different from every other conflict they'd weathered. Both sides were losing ground, losing loyal followers, losing... in the end, everything. Wondering if any of them would even be left alive was a maudlin line of thought, one Asklepios didn't want to consider, but it was quite definitely possible. His hand lingered over the collection of tinctures, elixirs and potions he'd concocted. One of them would help with sneezing - or incontinence. One of them was for dry eyes. One was for regeneration of hair, and another for various sorts of lice and mites that might take residence on the body. Panacea's cure, much as he might like it, was not the sort of thing that would help here. Ambrosia tincture was the order of the day, along with a salve of ambrosia as an unguent for her wound.
These two things in his possession - one in a small ceramic jar, the other in a clear glass bottle - Asklepios carried himself off, down the hallway with quick steps.
Athena had never come to him injured before. He couldn't remember Athena being wounded at all, in truth. She'd seemed more immortal than immortals, deathless and clever and bold. All of those things combined to make her impossibly powerful against even the most staunch of opponents. Oh, but he'd treated her victims before, hadn't he? Asklepios could admit to still being in awe of his aunt, in awe of the power she wielded. She was the one who wore the aegis, Zeus' legendary shield upon which was fixed the head of Medusa. She had wielded his supreme weapon, the thunderbolt, in his name. One of the greatest heroes the world had ever known. Impossibly beautiful, impossibly wise, impossibly strong. Yes, awe might cover it. He usually felt giddy as a schoolboy in her company, when he wasn't too shocked or awed to even speak. Athena, oddly, had never demanded such things of him. Courtesy and right action, certainly, but not fawning or worship. Well, someday he would work up the courage to ask her more than how she was feeling.
For instance, why she'd given him the blood of life and death, blood he still held in his possession.
( That was for another day. )
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| A Thoughtful Interlude (narrative) |
[10 Jan 2008|06:12pm] |
She sipped her licorice root tea, gazing out at the flowing Nile. It was proof positive that the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. Who was it that said that? She couldn't remember, but it certainly was true. Since the beginning of time, the Great River had stayed its course, except where humans had forced it to relocate as they built their modern wonders. But still it flowed, sustaining life in an otherwise lifeless land.
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| Bargain Shopping (Isis) |
[10 Jan 2008|06:45pm] |
Sitting as he was, just beneath the thin spire that capped Cairo Tower, Gwydyon couldn't see what was so special about Egypt. Before Set had interrupted his time there, he'd been enjoying himself, hadn't he? It was sadistic to torture people like that. Gwydon stared at his palms, open as they were, through the gaps between his fingers to the crowd below. None of them seemed to have noticed him. Torture wasn't something that enjoyed, wasn't even something that he did unless it was absolutely necessary. Much the same for his treatment of Set. Rude of him to interrupt? Certainly. Worthy of being turned into a toad, probably not. He didn't think, for some reason, that any promise he extracted from Set would ensure the business between them was at an end. He didn't fear the Egyptian god, but Gwydyon certainly didn't need another reason to wander or try to stay out of trouble. There were enough of those wandering around, Gwydyon was sure of that.
( Very sure. )
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| People Of The Sand (Inanna) |
[10 Jan 2008|07:10pm] |
After parting ways with his sister, his thoughts had been too unfocused. Control was essential, focus was paramount. The undisciplined mind was a weak mind, and its heart would soon follow in that direction. That was what found him in the Sahara. He couldn't have said precisely where he was, but that hardly mattered. The sun was beating down on his shoulders, and Horus was using the great dunes there to his advantage. Too easy to forget that the desert was what had hardened Egypt's people, given them an appreciation of the Nile and the life that it brought to the region. Sitting on his heels, elbows resting on his knees, Horus was staring down the face of the largest dune in the area - at least thirty feet high, with wide sloping sides. The sands were shifting under the wind, but that didn't matter. It didn't matter that the footing was unsure - or, at least, it shouldn't. Sweat drenched his back, as did a sheet of sand which stuck to his skin.
The desert was always looking for moisture to absorb. It wasn't the same as sand you might find on a beach - harder, coarser still.
( Just the way he wanted it. )
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| Pale Shelter (Tag: Alathea) |
[10 Jan 2008|08:16pm] |
Artificial lights never looked quite so good as when they scattered across a living, breathing city block. He took the long way, walking up 5th Street onto Commerce in downtown Fort Worth. The keys to his apartment jangled quietly in counter-position to the traffic on the corner. When man in red caught in his black box flashed three times, then turned green, Philammon crossed the street with the weekend press of young hipsters so eager to drink the coffee at Barnes & Noble and talk of politics and the effect of the internet on music releases these days. Unobtrusively eavesdropping, Philammon walked a few steps behind one particular group of 20-something kids with spiked hair and aloof slouches, smiling now and again at the importance that laced through their voices as they bantered back and forth. So meaningless all their talk was, in the grand scheme of things... but it meant everything to them now. That was the spirit of mortality, the spirit he admired. Live in the moment. Love in the moment. Do everything with intensity.
Sometimes gods forgot how to live just like that.
With little more than wistfulness, Philammon's thoughts turned toward Argiope, then Circe, then Nyx, then Calliope. Love... Yes, he'd loved them. One left through the most violent means possible - suicide. The other came to him for a season only; Circe was too wild and free to be held for long. Nyx, Nyx was never his to begin with, though he was pleased inordinately to know that they were good friends now. It was best that way. And Calliope, that graceful muse, he could never quite understand. In the end, it didn't matter why she'd left; she had. Aphrodite was kind enough to free him of her, but he could still look back. He could still remember. None of them had possessed that intensity he hoped for in a partner, at least not for him. His blindness had kept him from seeing it, until now. Maybe Asklepios was right for laughing at his spectacular goddess misfortune. His brother was wise, in many ways, despite his youth. It didn't truly help, not truly. Music was never quite so good without someone to share it with, without someone to write it with, without someone who inspired you. Could that be the reason, then? The reason for this strange legarthy? Lately, Philammon hadn't written anything that satisfied him. Childish forms, simple melodies, but nothing that held that spark he had been used to. Perhaps Aphrodite hadn't done him quite so much a favor as he thought. Then, maybe only his own perceptions had changed. Hard to tell, hard to tell. The Musician raked a hand through his hair, and tugged the keys out of his pocket with the other.
His left foot was on the stair that went up to his apartment building (and would Oizys be there?), when he felt the presence of another deity close by. There had been a time when Philammon wouldn't have noticed, a time when he'd drenched himself in music because it was all he could have, and all he could hold, and all that held him in turn. These days, he had a wider view of the world around him. Again, he wasn't sure just how good of a thing that was. When he looked behind him down the street he'd just walked, he found nothing. But past the throng of club-goers dressed in 80s garb (that would be City Streets they were going to, then), he thought he saw who it was. Dark hair, graceful steps... Yes, that must have been the deity. Squinting, he stepped down onto the sidewalk again, leaned his shoulder against the wall, and waited.
Maybe he'd say hello.
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| IF THE HEAVENS SHOULD FALL (Tag: Nyx) |
[10 Jan 2008|10:53pm] |
Time slid on its jagged slopes. And he was alone. The bedchamber in which Darkness lay grew heavy with the presence of night. But not the presence of Night. After Lethe departed, there was a long stretch of stillness. Dreamless existence. Strength sapped back into him - what little there was to return - only to be pulled back again by the increase in pain. His corpus had begun to build a resistance to the healer's medicines. Attendants came in what was certainly a scheduled routine for them. Administered such medicines as were appropriate. And departed. For a time there was relief. It faded more and more quickly each time. How long... Frustration rose within the Protogenos. He should have the number of visits in his mind. He should have the knowledge. How long had his corpus been here while his family suffered? And again. Before the answers would come. Down again into sleep.
~*~
The blankness of sleep parted slowly but ungently by the rising insistence of his injuries. Erebos' brow bore dots of liquid agony before he surfaced again. Night. (Still? Again?) A blessing for the comfort of it. A curse for the reminder that his wife had not come. Hard to hold a thought. Lethe's words traced over his memory. His failure. Danger for them all now. His failure. His daughter's disappointment. His daughter's suffering. A suffering he could not alleviate. The accusation in those dark eyes. The clenching of his hands burst the charred skin across their backs. Blood oozed lazily onto the white cotton under them. His failure.
Movement brought immediate roaring awareness of his form. He desisted immediately, his throat working nearly silently in response. Zeus' mighty weapon had ruined his corpus thrice over. Had struck deeper than flesh. He should not be breathing now. With the next breath, a cowardly thought chased over his mind: he wished he were not. Erebos recognized it for what it was. Let the disgust mingle with his first reaction. And let it fall away. There was reason to remain. Pain was temporary. Pain was a reminder of life. He reminded himself of the perverse truth that he was more healed than when he had first arrived - those first ego-less hours when he had not retained his identity as a god or husband or father. Endure. He would endure. It was not within the Darkness to hope; Elpis was a product of her mother more than her father. But Erebos could endure.
His pale green eyes focused on a narrow swath of fabric hanging from the top canopy. The world in a strand of silk.
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| Battle Standard (Narrative) |
[10 Jan 2008|11:09pm] |
(Warning: Explicit gore, NSFW)
It had truly been something to behold, once upon a time. Built by mortals in 550 BC and destroyed three times since; once by flame, once by steel, and finally by greed of what remained. The Temple of Artemis, one of the great Seven Wonders of the World had once brought men and women alike in droves to the city of Ephesus, from where word traveled that never so grand a sight, save Olympus itself, had even the gods laid their eyes upon. Tier upon tier had reached up high, built in a time when such material was worth more than the men who crafted it. The stone, as well as their toil had both been a sacrifice to show the goddess the depth of her importance to the world. But now it was nothing, a field of grass remaining of its once-grandeur.
It had been destroyed first by a mortal in 356 BC who one night set the temple aflame, seeking to enter the name of Herostratus in history by any means; if those means were arson upon the grandest structure eyes had ever seen, then so be it. It had second been damaged further in 262 AD, with an invading Goth army caring nothing of Artemis, or the culture which worshiped her. In 401 AD the temple was finally destroyed, ransacked by a mob, with the stones then being stolen for the creation of various other structures. Little remained of the Temple of Artemis, other than broken, crumbling stone laying about a field of grass, the green blades high as a man's waist and swaying softly in the wind. Out of all the structure had once been only two columns remained, one comprised of three stones and only four feet in height, looking as if touching it alone would send it toppling over. The other was comprised of ten stones, roughly fourteen feet, with a bird building its nest at the very top.
It had truly been something to behold, once upon a time. Now it was nothing more than crumbling ruins, much like the goddess it had been built to honor.
( Artemis was dead. )
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