Atë (recklessate) wrote in forgotten_gods, @ 2009-12-23 18:57:00 |
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Entry tags: | ate |
WHO: Ate narrative/open to Apollo
WHEN: Monday afternoon
WHERE: Somewhere in Ohio
WHAT: Ate's about to snap...
WARNINGS: language, lots of gory violence
Usually when Ate was denied for whatever reason, her immediate response was fury. As well as being a figure of ruin and terrible impulse, she was also the goddess of obsession and infatuation wrapped up in a very attractive package. To be ignored - or to be flat out refused - was something she had never had to get used to. Denial sent her into violent rages, over-dramatic and bloody and loud. Ate was a woman who rarely failed to make a scene.
But this time her rage was slow-brewing and quiet. Mark was supposed to be in love with her. When Ate wanted people then they wanted her back, damn it. But here with Mark, the only man she’d ever married and despite all of her best and (sort of occasionally) well intentioned efforts, he had near as told her to fuck off and die. And it wasn’t offence that she felt at this, but hurt. Mark complete refusal to want her in any way actually cut Ate and she hated that fact almost more than the denial itself.
She stole a car for herself and Apollo, knowing that he would help her feel not quite so bad. She drove faster than she should have and didn’t care much for what direction they headed. They’d reach New Orleans eventually, wherever they drove. Ate was bad company, quiet and introspective, and the siblings shared driving, stopping to sleep in hotels along the way.
On the third day Apollo pulled into a petrol station somewhere in Ohio, and Ate crossed the street to the diner there, looking for lunch and needing to stretch her legs. There weren’t many people around and the place was every diner Ate had ever seen on TV, right down to the truck drivers sitting at the counter and the country and western song on the radio. It wasn’t exactly her kind of place.
Eyes turned to the door as the god entered and she swept her gaze over them all before heading over to order. All she wanted was a stiff drink right now. As she leaned against the counter she felt the man next to her looking and Ate turned to look at him, her expression unmoved, still closed-off and cold. “Like something you see?” she asked him calmly.
Had she been smiling and playing, she suspected he would have agreed and flirted. But the aura of danger around her today had put him off any such ideas and he shook his head quickly and turned back to his lunch. “No, miss.”
His unwillingness to get into anything dangerous with Ate was exactly what finally set her off though. Mark rejecting her hurt, but some hillbilly truck-driving dickweed saying no to her was completely fucking unacceptable. She glared at him, feeling a vice contracting around her throat and heart. He looked back at her, a little worried that she was unhinged now. Ate’s fist shot out and although she was weak at the moment, she was still a god and still well practised in the art of killing. Her nails tore through flesh and she wrapped her fingers around his oesophagus, tearing it out. Screams erupted in the air around her and Ate breathed them in, feel almost unsteady with them. She didn’t run though, didn’t turn to leave.
She grabbed the waitress who ran past her and snapped her neck before slamming her face against the wall, the crack of bone and gristle accompanying it. Then she had a knife from behind the counter in hand and when one of the men tried to grab for her she shoved it deep inside his belly, her face inches from his as she twisted the blade and gashed open his stomach, intestines spilling out onto the floor and her shoes, hot and wet. The man gasped in pain and shock and Ate shoved him backwards off her knife and into another man, sliding across the table to grab him before he could get free of the body shuddering in death throes.
When she slit his throat the blood sprayed everywhere with a hiss, bathing Ate and the cook as he fled outside, screaming. Ate, knife still in hand, ran after him, reaching him in the carpark and throwing him down onto his knees in front of her.
“Please!” he cried out. “I have a family! I have-” his words turned unintelligible as Ate ripped his tongue out, shoving it down his throat and then pushing him down onto the concrete as he sobbed and screamed. She tossed the knife aside, letting is skitter away, and took his head between her hands, slamming it again and again against the ground until it finally smashed open under the assault, spilling brain matter and blood.
Then he was still. They all were.
Breathing heavily, Ate wiped the back of her hand across her face at the blood that was dripping in her eyes. She stood slowly and raised her eyes, seeing Apollo now.
Her smile was small was almost satisfied.