Grecian Urn...

Awhile after he watched Thanatos stagger away, Neikos left his ennui inflicted brother Hori to raid the food table.

They had cake! Cake! He was going to kiss Ate next time he saw her, give her a big slippery wet one on the cheek because he couldn't remember the last time he was at any social function on Olympus and they had cake!

He wished the Ate and Styx punch-out thing would have kept going, at least until someone scored a TKO! Watching his sister punch another chick? Even if it was his aunt Styx? Was awesome! But then grand-dad had the "bright" idea to go stepping into the thick of the girlfight and whatever he said sent Styx one way and Ate another. He'd really bugged him because it didn't seem like anything interesting was really going to happen at this party.

Next to watching Ate hit Styx, the most interesting thing in his opinion was watching Thanatos getting plastered which he thought was kind of funny.

Strife decided he would have to ask Kia how she managed to get him that way because Neikos thought Thanatos was too uptight to really enjoy himself to the point of drunken intoxication. And that? That was kind of unfortunate he guessed because Death had an awesome job. Strife thought Death should enjoy it. In fact Strife wished he was Death, or rather he wished he had Death's job because he thought it was the most kickass job a god could have...being the redeemer; the reaper of souls.

He bet Thanatos enjoyed the perks of the job too. Like Blue Oyster Cult, "Don't fear the Reaper," perks...

Riiight! Who was he kidding? Thanatos was too uptight to take full advantage of any potential perks like seducing maidens.

Strife was actually kind of surprised he didn't have to run to Thanatos' rescue actually, rescue him from Kia---Hahaha. That sister of his was a pouncer. It was not that he really liked the spooky bastard that much, to keep him from falling into horny sisterly clutches, he just kind of felt oddly responsible for him after the peacock thing. Okay, he'd felt sorry for him too. Thanatos had reminded him of a lost puppy. Big soulful dark brown eyes...

Strife passed by Morpheus and Lethe who were dancing awfully close and he gave them a perplexed stare, almost walked into Limos while he was staring...

"Hey, sorry Twig---gonna get some foodage..."

And he completely lost his train of thought upon almost collision.

Now he as wondering what was up with Cousin Dream? Strife had never known of Morpheus as being into...Well anyone, or at least he'd never been known as a ladies man. So why would Morpheus be dancing with his sister? That was really weird.

He came upon the table and was making himself a plate, said a casual and abrupt hello to Kia, Nom and his grandparents when....

All the lights went out!

"Whoa! Who turned out ALL the lights?"

"Not at all. Not at all, niece."

She sniffed and looked down her nose at Ate.

"Simply that as a spawn of my sister, I doubt you know how to properly prepare anything, let alone how to wash your hands."

Oh, that felt good. Very, very good.

Girl? Did he seriously just refer to her as girl? She just smirked and offered a bit of a shrug.

"I do clean up nice every couple of years, I suppose. I trust you're finding everything ok?"

She was tempted to introduce herself, but didn't think it really worth the effort...

    All in all, She was rather dubious about the idea of family dinner. It wasn't that she didn't want to see people... She was rather fond of everyone she was related to. Her grandparents were quite lovely, so far as she was concerned, and she did have things she needed to discuss with certain  siblings.

    On the other hand... she had a finite, short amount of time with Morpheus, before everything got all messed up again. She wanted to be irrational, and think up all sorts of ways to avoid what was going to happen... but she voiced none of them. She wasn't even sure he'd want that, if it was possible... and wasting time on theories and ideas seemed... well, a waste.

    She paused in front of her mothers house and listened, hearing the sounds from the back, and turned to face him, offering a smile.

    "It sounds like everyone's in the back. Sure you want to go? We don't have to..."

She was in the kitchen, finishing a few final touches on dinner as she heard the door swing open.

"I know I'm not dressed yet..."

She looked up, a grin forming a she saw it was Kia, and not Eris as expected.

"Ahh... it's you. Disregard that. You early?"

“I was hoping for a nice sit down dinner…”

“Well, Eris, You are rather certifiable.”

“Cheeky. That's no way to talk to your mother."

Ate laughed, and looked at Eris. “Oh, right… like any sane person would want to figure out the seating arrangements for this dinner, if they were hoping to avoid bloodshed? We’re doing a buffet. Listen to your caterer.”

“Caterer?”

“Mmm. You’ll get my bill. You’re sure you want to unleash this sort of crazy?”

“I just want everyone to get along.”

“You invited the wrong family for that.”

Eris lifted a brow at her daughter’s retort, and shook her head. “You're a horrible daughter. So, here in the garden, you think?”

Ate glanced around her mother’s garden, and smirked as she nodded. “You’ve got what... Venus fly traps, yellow trumpets, cobra lilies, hemlock, belladonna, fox glove, white oleander… I don’t see why anyone wouldn’t want to dine amidst the carnivorous and poisonous, but it’s not like you can uninvite the family now, is it?”

“You’re in a foul mood.”

“Gee. Considering I’ve been shanghaied into cooking for a dinner I don’t want to be at for people I don’t want to see in a place where I’ve been officially banned… and the easiest bit since it all has been convincing Hori that Curry with Sprinkles really wasn’t the thing to make… Yeah. I’m in a mood.”

“Bah. Away with you.”

Eris shoo’ed Ate toward the kitchen, and surveyed the garden. Ate did have a point… there was a lot less that needed doing if they were going to have it out here. She manifested some bistro chairs in various groupies around the garden paths, as well as some wrought iron chairs, and watched contently as a string of Chinese paper lanterns hung themselves along the privacy hedges and over the garden. Rather then candles, each one produced an orb of darkness – her parents would be bright enough for anyone.

Along the side of the temple near the kitchens she conjured a long buffet table, then moved it toward the pool, Thwarting any plan Ate might have of hiding in the kitchen all night. If forcing your child to mingle with relatives at a family party wasn’t part of parenting, she didn’t know what was. Pleased with the way the garden looked, she moved toward the kitchen, watching as Ate did her thing.

“Need help?”

“I’m good.”

“What have you made?”

“Fried chicken, baked ziti, potato salad, ceasar salad, pasta salad, Shish kebab… plus crudités and an olive tray for starters, and for dessert, svinghi and kataifi.”

“Impressive.”

“Eh. You taught me how to make most of it…”

“Ahh.. and that school in France had nothing to do with it?” Eris smiled as she saw the look on Ate’s face. “You didn’t think I knew about that.”

“Didn’t think you’d care.”

“I pay more attention than you think.”

“Any attention is generally more than I think.”

“Am I really that horrid?”

“Eris… I have a lot of stuff to do. Won’t people be here any minute?”

“So that’s a yes.”

“No, it’s… no. You weren’t. We don’t have time for this conversation right now.”

“Your sister thinks this is a good time to bury the hatchet.”

“There is no hatchet. We’re never going to have some deep mother/daughter bond you seem to want lately.”

“But we could be friendlier. We could both probably benefit from that.”

“Probably. You’re beating around the bush about something… spit it out.”

“I’ll spit it out if you tell me why you’re in such a bitchy mood.”

“Will it get you to leave my kitchen? Fine.”

“My kitchen… but yes. Very well… Apollo’s asked me to marry him. I told him we needed to talk to family first.. especially Elpis. But I’d like it if the rest of you were ok with it.” She canted her head as she watched her eldest’s reaction, a bit surprised at the total lack of response. “ Your turn.”

“The only thing bothering me currently is the fact that I’m going to have very little time to get changed.”

Eris frowned, a bit perturbed at the reaction, or lack there of, and was about to argue it a bit when she heard something in the front of the temple, indicating someone had actually arrived on time.

“Yes.. do change first. I’m going to see who’s here. Yell if you need anything…”

She swept out of the kitchen, leaving Ate to finish whatever it was she was doing with various bowls and trays, making her way to the main hall, a smirk growing slowly across her lips. Oh, her parents were going to just love this… she knew it.

"You'd think he'd have held onto it better then. I'm sure he does appreciate your... support, dear. I have nothing against the Smith, but I do think Hades better suited... though to be fair, I remember when Hades was green."

She glanced toward Reb with a frown, sue she just misheard Styx.

"What do you mean, Cronus is back?"

He had caught his son Thanatos in the hall on the way to an empty bedroom before he'd ended up finding Nyx downstairs where she'd told him that Styx was on the Mountain and he'd wanted to go for a visit.

"Who goes there," his voice had boomed!

Erebos had thought it might have been another one of his grandchildren passing by their mother's home which meant he might find a little bit of satisfaction in tormenting another because he was growing restless and bored with not being able to sleep.

Thanatos had paused his step and slowly turned around with a sullen expression plastered on his refined features. He really wished he could have avoided running into his father until he'd at least rested, "It's I, Thanatos, Sir."

Erebos had approached the other deity with caution and repulsion in each of his steps and observed the strange mortal look that his usually very ethereal child was donning with contempt.

He lifted a hand and had pinned thick locks of his son's hair back with his fingers so he could get a less obscured view of the face , "Ah! I see! You look---" he honestly didn't want to say "dreadful," but he didn't know how to be nice about it as his nose slightly curled.

Thanatos had frowned and looked down at his feet, "I was just going to find a bed to rest in Sir. I'm tired."

Erebos tsked, "By the looks of you, you really need it Spook."

He had jerked back his hand allowing Thanatos's hair to fall around his face as if Death was wearing an extra hood when his death robes were absent and tipped Thanatos's chin under his hand upward until Thanatos was looking at him again, "Go."

He had pulled his hand away and then turned away from his child when he impatiently stopped Thanatos' from proceeding to his bed yet again, "Wait! Spooky? Have you seen your mother?"

"She's downstairs," Thanatos had paused to answer, looking as if he was going to drop from exhaustion.

Erebos had wrung a hand toward Thanatos, "Okay. Shew! Off to bed with you."

And that is when Erebos had meet his wife downstairs and been informed that Styx was also on the Mountain.

"We must visit her at once! Did you see Thanatos? He looked terrible."

Thanatos hurried down the stone stair descending from Zeus's palace, fleeing from Hades and Styx and the nasty mental images his mind had conjured up in their presences. He still did not understand why this bothered him so, but he felt sort of ill to his stomach over it nonetheless.

He felt back inside of his coat's pocket, gaining some comfort as his fingers grazed the cool glass like surface of the memory orb within. He needed to watch this, write down what was seen and heard from observing it and learn from it. He was glad he'd not tried to do this while in the company of those he had just left. It would give him something to do, distract him from undesirable thoughts and feelings.

Before long they would all be back to their natural selves at the New Moon as Aphrodite had stated. A return to indifference toward things like love and sex would make him stout hearted again, as opposed to this wilting flower he'd suddenly found himself.

He continued on the way to Eris's temple and halfway there stopped to observe some wildflowers that were freely growing outside of any one deities property on Olympus. Briefly he wondered if Eris would like some freshly picked flowers to put in one of her vases and proceeded to pluck a few of them, finding it quaintly satisfying to spare a few growing there.

Fifteen minutes later he opened a door and walked inside of Eris's temple when he immediately noticed some grotesque monstrosity of a sculpture that he recognized from his childhood. He idly wondered what that was doing here and how he could have missed it the last time he was there?

However, feing strangely sleepy from his walk from Zeus's temple to this one he did not concern himself with it. He proceeded to look for an empty vase for the blue irises and red poppies, filling the vase halfway with water before arranging the flowers in the vase that he left on the kitchen table.

He wandered into a dim sitting room where he soon found himself curled up on one of the sofas and sound asleep on his side with a blanket of his thick hair falling over his closed eyes.

She didn't like the bed.

It wasn't a bad bed, as far as she could tell, but it wasn't her bed, and so it just wasn't working the way it should It didn't help that she was nocturnal by nature... but as much as the brightness was disturbing during waking hours, it made it impossible to sleep... as well as something inside her insisting Day needed to be Diurnal. Normally, she had the comforting blanket of Reb's darkness to make daytime palatable and sleep possible, but that wasn't possible now. Not that she blamed him, of course... that lay firmly on the shoulders of Apollo.

It also didn't help that she had other thoughts trawling through her brain that refused to cease. She had known, of course, Eris and Reb would fight. Had expected it, and even looked forward to it. Eris had been born ornery and argumentative, and Reb had always taken a perverse pleasure in baiting her. It hadn't always been so malicious... She remembered her youngest as a mostly pleasant child. Still, the idea that Eris apparently was still hooked on Apollo (And what had he done to make it that way?) was disturbing, as was this talk of abandonment and giving up on her... It was preposterous. Eris had been the one to leave for Olympus, and no one had ever understood that choice. She may try to avoid certain children (thank goodness Hemera and Aither were the self-sufficient types) but she had never abandoned a single one of them. Perhaps Eris was just a needier child? She wasn't sure there was anything to be done about it at that point.

And nothing was changing the fact that she did not like the bed.

She was quiet as she slid out, moving to a chair that sat near the window... where there was night. Her night. And darkness... at least a mild form of it. Sleep didn't seem to be coming... She wasn't sure what fate must have befallen Hypnos. She was going to be particularly displeased if all the hoopla everyone was going on about was going to permanently affect her and hers...

Eris smirked as Kia left... Naked hula dancing? Not very likely. Luckily, there was little to no chance of that being required. She did look forward showing Apollo her newest bit of art... he was fond of art. She was worried about him, that she hadn't heard from him yet. Still, she was unwilling to go to his temple, knowing he'd know where to find her. She could only hope that if he was hurt, she'd come here, and not go to his sisters. There was little to do but wait.

Sighing lightly she took a seat on a chaise, fighting the automatic urge to take a nap. It was funny... she actually was starting to miss the idea ofpeople being around.

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