Sándor Bíró ☠ Minos (judgeofthedead) wrote in mythologs, @ 2012-05-24 12:04:00 |
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Entry tags: | lethe, minos |
[completed/closed]
Characters: Lethe (lethe) & Minos (judgeofthedead)
Date/Time: After May 12th, before the event (after this)
Location: A bar.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Minos.
Summary: Stealing information from the judge. Does it go as planned?
This wasn't the sort of mission Lethe expected to be sent on when Hades summoned her, her abilities never before used for the purpose of espionage. Of course she was capable of the task and could extract any memory with precision if she knew what she was looking for, but even with Minos' schedule burned into her mind, staying focused and finding the opportune moment to get close to him was the tricky part. She usually preferred letting unsuspecting victims to fall into her grasp than seek them out, but she wasn't about to argue or let Hades down.
Far less of a seductive bombshell than usually played this role in the typical spy movie, it worked to Lethe's advantage while slipping into the bar unnoticed, unbothered by the other patrons as she searched for her target. Though she didn't understand why Hades couldn't demand the information from Minos himself, the specifics and subtleties of power plays were never her thing.
Routine of his known life was something he welcomed after the two months spent God knows where. There had been some pleasures in that false existence, some perks that he would miss with more fury than wistfulness. But it hadn't been true and he grudgingly swallowed that, turning to building the life he had here.
And life in New York was far from bad for Minos. He had a secured home, a luxurious car, a lack of family pestering him and a job that was still fairly successful. And if that job didn't cover the bills for whatever reason, he had his other work, work that allowed him wonderful freedom to release the day's tension and pad his accounts. Work that reminded him that life would be good to him always.
That work also taught him never to keep his back to any door or window and so he could be found in a booth in the back, drink down halfway and phone in hand as he skimmed through a few messages from a construction site. The bar around him, from what he had gathered, was safe enough and so Lethe's entrance went unnoticed.
It took some time for Lethe to locate him, drink in hand to ease her tension and appear less out of place. She either was or wasn't old enough to be there yet, estimating her actual age somewhere on the cusp of legal, but if it weren't for her rather convincingly made fake license they probably wouldn't have allowed Lethe in at all.
Having watched plenty of movies in preparation, knowing how this sort of script was supposed to go as she meandered Minos' way without making her path too direct, too obvious, whatever entrance she actually intended was ruined the moment she tripped in the wobbly heels she had no experience walking in and spilled the remainder of her drink all over Minos with a surprised squeak.
Well, that worked too.
Indeed. The cold splash of whatever had been in hand struck him, soaking through his shirt, fat droplets splattering his jeans. He was up on his feet near instantly, the look on his face murderous. The culprit in sight, his hand reacted before his brain did, snatching her by the wrist to drag her close.
"What the fuck, woma--" Not a woman. Not a woman at all but not a girl as well. From her appearance, she appeared in between being one or the other. Pigtails could transform her into someone more youthful. A little make-up would mature her (but the heels had to go).
As if that would stop him from assaulting her. Kindness had never been Minos' favourite offering. That she reminded him of someone only made him dislike her more (his brain was flipping through his memories, searching for who she could be). Grip tightening, the once-king growled out, "Have you two left feet or do you have a problem with me?"
There was little doubt that Lethe stood no chance in a physical confrontation against Minos, the crushing grip on her wrist causing the cup to topple at their feet with a splash of the small amount of liquid that was left. Yet as surprised as she was, his reaction coming quicker than she had the ability to fully process what had happened, Lethe hardly looked threatened as she stared up at the towering man with a genuinely embarrassed smile. "Ah, stupid," she scolded herself for the sloppy entrance, and with no napkins or towels on hand to clean up the mess, Lethe stretched out the material of her shirt to pat at the wet spots on his clothes with little effect.
"I'm usually not so clumsy," she sighed with uncertainty, unable to confirm whether that was true or not as her own thoughts blurred away while she filtered through his, not wasting any time now that she was as close as she was going to get. While alcohol usually dulled the mind enough to make sifting easier for Lethe, Minos' actively searching through his own memories was distracting. If she could afford to be rushed, Lethe could have easily grabbed a large chunk of memories for the information, but Hades had warned her to only take what was needed and leave everything else unsupiciously intact.
The light in the bar wasn't going to allow total recognition, not until he pulled her closer to himself, unwilling to raise his voice more than needed. There was no sign that he was aware of what she was doing but sometimes a man with much luck had to have low moments. "Stupid indeed. Cease to paw me, girl, I'm not going to dry like that."
And then it clicked. "Maine," he hissed and, much to even his own surprise, his fingers tightened more. "The little girl who saw too much."
The sharp pain was enough to shock Lethe out of Minos' mind, unsuccessful with retrieving anything useful as her concentration crumbled. Wincing, she didn't dare scream out though her fingers curled in pain, not wanting to attract any attention and risk being separated from the man. If it weren't for Hades, unwilling to face his chilly disappointment, she would have retreated from her failure. But she couldn't really try this another day without it being far too suspicious, it had to be that night and she had to find a way to turn this to her advantage.
But unfortunately Minos, even unaware of her intentions, was less than cooperative. The recognition in his gaze made her uneasy, wondering if Minos had somehow figured out who she was and what she was doing. "Maine?" Lethe echoed in confusion, trying to make sense of his statement, unable to place it in any context she was familiar with.
If he had heard or seen any pain, he would have reveled in it like the sadist he was. Brief disappointment touched his features and his fingers loosened for his sake more than hers. But her inquiry, that was more pressing. How could she not know him?
"A man in a living room, gone and likely greeting the Ferryman of the Underworld. You came from no where, it seemed. You..." Minos then frowned, attempting to recall what she had said. "You were odd. Were you so unaware of what happened? Your father, he was dead."
"You know Charon?" she spoke in a hushed curiosity, leaning in and tilting her head back to fix Minos with an expectant stare. Or was it a risk of giving herself away? Did he already know? He spoke as if he did, yet the context didn't quite match up. As if he mistook her for somebody else, or knew something she didn't.
"From nowhere," Lethe repeated almost dreamily, "I never had a father."
"Charon isn't the Ferryman anymore. He's a living, breathing mortal now." It was curious she brought him up. Either she knew him from the community (he could be chatty enough, it seemed) or from the Underworld. Something to find out, then.
And of course she had a father. This had to be that girl, from that time. Belonging to that man. How could she not recall? "You had a father and I took him away," he informed her. "How can you not remember? Have you had an accident, girl?"
"Oh," Lethe nodded along thoughtfully, "Yes, I suppose he would be." If Charon were around, she couldn't remember ever crossing paths with him, hadn't really made a point of seeking him out. Acheron and Styx were more familiar with the ferryman than she.
Yet there was still doubt that he was referring to knowing her true self, because there was no father to speak of for anyone to take away- only Eris. Which only left one possibility, one that made Lethe quite uncomfortable with acknowledging. That somehow he knew her from a point she couldn't even remember in this life, knew her family and possibly even her name. She was simultaneously curious and terrified, had tried hard to escape any connections to having a past.
"Accide-" she began to question slowly, the rest of the word cut off by eyes widening and then a sudden frown, bringing her back to the murky beginnings of her human memory. Being dragged out of a river by a panicked woman who called herself mother, the constant therapy for her unexplained amnesia of anything before then. There had never been a father in the picture, the single time she asked was met with far more tears than she could handle. "Something like that."
Not bothered in the slightest over the death of a father she couldn't remember or being faced with the man who had supposedly done it, Lethe casually inquired, "Is that something you do often?" If it were true at all.
Minos accepted her vague answer, much to annoyed that she couldn't remember even if that should have been a blessing. Letting her go that day was a mistake, one born from arrogance. But she hadn't been a target and it was less messy to throw in another body, at least at that time.
Could he do away with her now? Perhaps not. Even if no one had intervened, the bar patrons surely had seen him with her and that would make life rather annoying if this came back to bite him in the ass (if only he knew why she was there).
"Careful now." Her wrist released, he moved to catch her chin, tugging her face close. "You don't want to ask questions like that if you want to live. Now, give me your name."
Although not doubting the intention behind it, Lethe giggled girlishly at his cliched threat, doubting even revealing herself would spare her if he chose to act on it. She may not have recalled meeting him in this life, but she knew perfectly well the kind of man Minos was. Those sorts of things never changed. "Elizabeth," she lied without hesitation, not offering the name she'd been using by default in case he'd try to track her down, didn't want this traced back to Hades. While slightly distracted, she hadn't lost sight of her original purpose that night.
Placing her hand over his, gently at first like she'd normally attempt to keep others at ease, Lethe dug fingernails into his wrist and attempted to pry it away from her face. "Please, let go," she asked with a falsified hint of worry, hoping that her request would only prompt him to react the opposite and prolong their contact, even if it resulted in a messy struggle. Digging through his mind again, Lethe avoided the conflicting temptation to peek at his memories relating to her and instead went directly for the contact information that Hades had requested.
Even at his age, it was possible to learn to not fall into predictable traps. But he wouldn't that day and his fingers pressed harder into the soft flesh of her chin, still so unaware of who she truly was and what she was up to.
Deciding she looked like a girl who would have been named Elizabeth (yet affectionate called Lizzie), he didn't think too hard on whether it was true or not. He hadn't really acquired her name back then, that being insignificant when it came to the problem. But who'd have thought he'd have met her again? And that she was a likely reincarnated being.
This wasn't chance. It couldn't be.
"Why would I listen to a girl your size? And watch your damn nails. I don't need you taking my blood." And for whatever bit she dared to take from him, Minos would double it and take from her. The pressure of his thumb lightened to skim along the line of her jaw as his own clenched a bit harder. "Little Lizzie. You know of Charon. Who else do you know? What else do you know?"
With the small slices of memory isolated and withdrawn, there was still the matter of getting back without arousing suspicion. Lacking any exit strategy and unable to slip away unnoticed, Lethe was uncertain how the rest of this was supposed to play out. Hades hadn't really prepared her for this much, had told her what to do but not exactly how to do it beyond not allowing Minos to know what she was doing. Which was easier said than done when he was questioning her so intently. And without Hades' direction guiding her each step of the way, it was difficult for the aimless river to confidently act on her own.
The brush of his thumb across her jawline prompted a light shiver, Lethe closed her eyes while trying to consider her options. If she lied now, the likelihood of Minos figuring out later who she was a high enough of a chance that he'd automatically assume she'd been hiding something. Coming up with a convincing lie was risky if caught in the act. But if she gave herself up willingly now...
"I know you. Knew you," she quickly corrected, hoping she wasn't digging a deeper hole.
Knew him. Greek, she had to be. And despite the knowledge that she knew Charon, knew of him anyway, he leapt another way, going toward a more selfish conclusion. "Don't be one of my fucking daughters," the once-king of Crete snarled out. "Gods help you if you're one of those useless, disappointing little bitches. Acacallis, the whore. Ariadne, aspiring for more than she could handle. Phaedra, the worst of women. None of them worthy of carrying my blood."
And then he let her chin go, disregarding if he held on to his wrist or not. If she did, she might be forced to bend and even follow as he sat himself back down where she had first found him. "But if you're Pasiphaë, then no one can help you."
Allowing herself to be led, unreluctantly sitting beside the former king despite all better judgment (because that was more his thing), Lethe continued to giggle quietly as Minos flaunted his bitter grudges. His complaining was almost as amusing as Set's had been.
She was never good at staying too focused, especially around stronger personalities- could have, should have been taking the opportunity to get out of there. Unabashedly stealing a quick sip or two of whatever Minos had been drinking before she had interrupted him by dousing him with her own, Lethe shook her head to deny being related to him.
"Ah, no. I'm a river." If Minos remember his geography well, he at least had a one in five chance of identifying her.
What amused her so much? The girl probably had lost more than whatever robbed her of the memory of that time. Yet she could recall other things, such as her true self, claiming to have been a river.
Momentarily, he was distracted by her actually stealing his drink and then refocused. An Underworld creature, then, as she had brought up the association with Charon. Not Styx, she didn't feel as she had once been a river of river which left Lethe, such of oblivion.
It made him uneasy but to push away suddenly would reveal that. But he was guarded, not eager to grab her again. "How did a river find me? It takes planning or luck to trip across another once immortal figure, even in this city."
"Do I really seem the type that knows how to plan?" Lethe questioned seriously, hand on his chest and sniffing rather openly at a still damp spot on Minos shirt to remember what she'd been drinking. Something orangey. Whatever Minos was drinking wasn't quite as delicious, although she gave it another glance. "I don't even know where I left my car keys," and the statement was followed by a momentary pause as Lethe glanced over at a man who had a few drinks too many searching for said car keys under the table, eyes narrowing. "Idon'tevenhaveacar."
Trying to catch the attention of somebody to bring her another drink as they passed by, a clear indication that she was no longer in any hurry to get out, Lethe was ignored as always. "Or not," she sulked, arms folded across her chest. Usually she preferred it that way, but it was inconvenient when it conflicted with her desire for another screwdriver, wanting to get just drunk enough that asking Minos more about what he knew of her past wouldn't be quite as daunting.
"They hardly notice me," she lamented, and the effect was more noticeable with alcohol in the equation. "I wouldn't say it's luck, but you immortals always pick me out far too easily."
Though appearances could be deceiving, Minos was willing to believe he couldn't plan to save her life. Was that too harsh? He didn't think so, not when he wondered what she was going on about car keys.
Fingers lightly drumming on the tabletop, his mind rolling over the possibilities of what to do with the little river that sat near him, arms crossed in a manner that reminded him of a child just subdued but still quite possibly rebellious inside. Just what would his cold-hearted Uncle Hades do? The judge had to wonder.
"Because you're out of place. You and the other rivers don't belong up here." He didn't belong here. There was little here that could compare the glory of having the final day in judgment, that power, that feeling that he could do no wrong and would always be rewarded. No matter how he had lived his life, he had been blessed with power in death.
"Mm, no, I don't," she readily agreed with an uneven shake of her head, having come to the same conclusion long ago. Not only as a river, but as oblivion, she really shouldn't have existed as she did now. "But is there even a not-here left?" Lethe had once pondered what it would be like to escape back to the Underworld, but everyone was here now. Well, if the other rivers were floating around, she had yet to hear of it, nor any of her siblings.
Lethe watched for a few quiet moments while wondering if there was any particular pattern he was tapping, downing the rest of Minos' drink without so much asking permission and a slight wrinkle of the nose from the burn. And as small as she was, the effect was almost immediate, overcome by a pleasant drowsiness that dropped her guard even further. She'd let Hades scold her for sloppy decisions later.
There really was no way she could have anticipated Minos having prior knowledge of her, about the past she had always tried to ignore and yet now so close couldn't resist prying. But as easy as it would have been to snatch those memories for her own, she couldn't compromise her mission more than she had already. Her usefulness to Hades was the only purpose she had found in this life, and losing that would be terrifying.
"Maine... I lived in Maine?" she prodded lightly for more details, leaning in close.
"I wouldn't know but I would like to know." The tapping decreased when he saw his drink disappear down her throat, at least for a moment before it resumed its normal, rather simple pattern. Better she be less coherent than himself and surely the bourbon would help with that.
But what was he going to do about her? It wasn't as if Hades was about to take care. And of the Underworld beings he knew were around, he doubted any of them were fit to take charge in the mean time. Oh, of course, the idea appealed to him but there was no Underworld here, not the one that they were used to. So why should he at all?
Reaching into his shirt pocket, he withdrew a pack of cigarettes. His lighter was fetched from the pocket of his jeans. "You did. It was a nice enough home, not to my taste. A fishing town." One was tapped out and slipped between his lips, lit swiftly enough. "Boring little place where people could lose their minds to the silence."
Perhaps not to his taste, but the dull silence of such a place appealed to Lethe, trying to imagine what her life was like there. Was she this unhappy growing up, in the ignorance of her true self. Did she allow herself to have friends, dreams, before she had decided they were far too human? Did she care about her family, unlike now?
But she'd grown to like the constant noise and busyness of New York, a place where she could get lost and drowned out her thoughts. And despite curiosity, she had no plans of going back. "Ah, and then my father," she questioned, "Why did you kill him?" Her tone was inappropriate for the subject, as if asking why the sky was blue. "Shh, don't worry, I won't tell," she promised with a finger pressed to her lips.
A brow was lifted but the answer offered would likely not satisfy. "It doesn't matter because I'm not telling you." There was a limit to what he wanted to tell her but the details of why were not for her ears. That had nothing to do with her and it would remain so.
Sighing, nearly in a long-suffering manner (how dramatic of him), he looked away from her, toward his wrist where he checked the time. "If you intend to stay here and drink, fine. But I don't care to sit around, reek of whatever you were drinking and entertain you about a past you don't remember. The only past worth knowing is the one you do appear acquainted with."
So that was the way he wished to play it. She had given him a fair chance to willingly volunteer the information, and Minos' refusal was only a minor inconvenience to getting what she wanted. And she intended to, but for that night she'd spare him. Ruffling his dark hair and placing a light kiss against Minos' cheek, Lethe whispered a promise that it wasn't the last he'd see of her with a simple "see you around," before making her move to leave.