| Facade (Styxlings, whenever they're free!) |
[24 Mar 2008|10:44pm] |
Asklepios' apothecary provided nothing close to the relief that Akheron gave her. Then... What could?
She'd been unconscious for longer than she could guess, there on Akheron's floor. There was a foggy memory of Deimos (Deimos?) carrying her over one shoulder, mumbling something that might have been 'What the fuck did you do, Styx?'... It might have been that. Stretching spaces of white and gray... Then, finally, a tan, sweet-faced attendant bending over her and trying to coax her into drinking something foul and nasty.
Styx was not the best patient.
Deimos should have dropped her into her river instead of relying on Apollo's son to do this healing. She expected after leaving Akheron's temple, the shielding around her would fade away -- anyone could tell where she was. But as the day wore on, she realized why it had to be this way. If the ruse was to play itself out, then she couldn't be left in the Underworld, where she was supposedly attacked in the first place. Her clever brain was not so clever when she was coughing up blood, apparently. It pissed her off. Styx glared at the white ceiling arching over her head and missed the velvet darkness of Akheron's home. Peace. She missed that, too. And through the missing of it, she was realizing, grimly, that she was weaker than she'd believed. That Akheron had been right about her. That she really was a coward. Yet, she could still feel the ties between them, the give and take, Hate and Pain and Hate and Pain again. Why did he....
No, she knew why he did it, even believing what he said he thought of her. Her head lolled without interest back on the pillow under it and she let her eyes unfocus. She probably should be screaming right now, just to maintain the charade, just to keep the facade solid. But pretending pain she didn't feel took too much effort, wasted energy she didn't have. She much rather preferred spending that energy on twisting other questions about in her head.
Like why Deimos had been at Akheron's temple in the first place.
It didn't make any sense. Deimos had understood why she'd gone... But Deimos thought she'd gone to Moros, then, didn't he? Or had she been that specific? There'd been too much vodka that night for her to rightly recall. The question wended itself in and out through her mind until she fell asleep with it. When she woke again, it was bright outside, past the cream-colored curtains that hung on the wall. She glared at the window and turned her head the other way. It was too easy to loathe the light, after having spent the last...few.... days?.... in Akheron's temple.
Then the question began again, insistent on running itself around until it found its answer. She wrinkled her forehead. So engrossed, she almost missed the sound at the door.
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