Asteria (thefallingstar) wrote in nevermore_logs, @ 2012-04-27 04:06:00 |
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Entry tags: | asteria, hecate |
WHO: Asteria & Hecate
WHEN: Very late on Tuesday
WHERE: Hecate's home
WHAT: Using ghosts like bloodhounds.
WARNINGS: blood, necromancy, probably not much.
Asteria wasn't a morning person. Asteria wasn't even a day. Hers were the hours of darkness when the stars burned brightly above, a flickering canopy thrown across the world.
From Chicago, ghosts and blood had led Asteria.. Family, she had told the ghosts. Take me to my family.
To follow ghosts was sometimes a confusing affair. Most ghosts didn't know where they were even if they could find a single person across the other side of a country, so travel became equally confused for anyone following. But they were happy to play guide for someone who could see them and would pay them some attention. They traded her along to others when they felt they could go no further and eventually they arrived at the gates of a new city and even she could feel that she was close.
Perses, the starry-one told them, opening her skin, offering the ghosts what star-blood lay in her veins. Perses.
The ghosts searched for their mistress but when they eventually returned they had no seen nothing of her husband.
Asteria remained pragmatic. To allow disappointment in would get her no where.
Hecate, the starry-one told them, sending them out again. Leto.
Those that found her sister returned quickly, excited to be able to please Asteria. She praised the ghosts and thanked them for their hard work before learning of where Leto was.
Those that found Hecate returned many hours later and with even more excitement: yes, they had found her daughter. They had found her and spoken to her and Hecate in turn had been able to speak to them. The joy at this made it harder to leave the dark-tressed goddess and return but eventually they had forced themselves, telling Hecate that Asteria would herself come soon. She learned from them the address of her daughter before thanking them and then Asteria went further into the city, alone now and ignoring the spirits that might want her attention.
She walked through dark streets to the door of Hecate and knocked.
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[info]torchywitch
2011-04-27 12:10 pm UTC (link) Track This
Ghosts were such a common thing for her, that she'd barely blinked when the small group had shown up on her doorstep. New York was a town full of ghosts, but not as many as other cities would have but still enough, so she'd let them in with happy smiles.
This smile had only grown when they'd given their news. She hadn't seen her mother in so, so long. Hecate had grown up under Perses' strong hand, only having faint memories of the woman who had taught her how to use her powers, with many a story about starry-eyed Asteria. And Hecate learned to love an island, often playing on sandy shores and showing her mother what she'd learned.
There had been love there, in their strange family. Odd love, detached love, but love. And now Mother was to visit and Hecate had almost shrieked in excitement. How the daughter of Destruction and Stars got so cheery would be a mystery for the ages, but she'd not stopped smiling.
She had prepared and once the knock came she opened her door with a smile. "Mother. You're here. Come in."
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[info]thefallingstar
2011-04-27 01:11 pm UTC (link) Track This
Asteria entered the home of her only child and reached out with her arms to move the girl into the light. "Let me look at you," was the first thing she said to her.
She had grown up well without Asteria's guidance, into a beautiful woman who looked nothing like her mother at all. Dark wavy hair, pale skin, but the both of them had those pale green-blue eyes. Hecate's features were far more her father's than Asteria's though.
As an island she remembered the child on her shores, she remembered the husband she'd once shared a bed with. They had been her family before Zeus had forced her hand. Maybe she should have let Zeus have his way if it meant keeping her family, but Asteria knew she would only have grown to hate everything if she'd given her body over to Zeus willingly.
"Beautiful," Asteria finally told Hecate. "And powerful." She could feel that easily enough.
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[info]torchywitch
2011-04-27 01:21 pm UTC (link) Track This
Hecate obediently did as her mother asked, standing under the dim light of the lamps. Few could make Hecate do anything, her mother was an exemption. She didn't fuss, she just stood there, looking at the woman who had given her life and her power.
It was irony she'd chosen to side with Zeus, even after what he'd done to her mother. Maybe because Hecate hadn't wanted to be an island, maybe because her father had taught her the value of patience. It was more likely because she'd had no choice, but unlike her mother and aunt she'd never been chased by Zeus. Hecate liked to think even the Thunder King had to be intimidated by a daughter of Destruction.
She grinned at the praise, knowing it was raise. "I had good teachers. I'm glad to see you." She wanted to ask if her father was here, but Perses would be so obvious. "I welcome you mother. MY door's always open for you. Do you want something to eat?"
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[info]thefallingstar
2011-04-27 01:29 pm UTC (link) Track This
Hecate's siding with Zeus was best forgotten as far as Asteria saw it. She certainly wouldn't bring it up. (At least not until it proved to be useful leverage of some sort. She doubted she'd ever need that with Hecate though.)
"Yes," Asteria told her. "It's been a long journey to find you."
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[info]torchywitch
2011-04-27 01:35 pm UTC (link) Track This
Smiling she led her mother into the apartment, coaxing the dogs away from the new person. With a gesture she had them back down and go back to their corners. All for Hekuba. Hecate had her favorites. "It really is good to see you mother. It's been ages." Her parents didn't do physical displays of affection, and Hecate had learned to take what she could.
"You're free to stay for as long as you like. I have an extra room. Would you like anything specific?"
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[info]thefallingstar
2011-04-27 01:48 pm UTC (link) Track This
Asteria certainly hadn't thought ahead to where she would stay, but the idea of remaining in Hecate's home didn't seem a horrible one. It would do them well to catch up, she thought. "I'll stay with you if you'll have me. Is the sky visible from this extra room?" She was more comfortable when she could see the sky above, but she didn't need it. She could always go outside to see the very little of the stars that the city would allow her to view.
"As for food," Asteria said, casting a gaze around herself. "Anything you have will be fine."
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[info]torchywitch
2011-04-27 01:58 pm UTC (link) Track This
"Of course I'll have you. My home is your home." She nodded then, "it is." She liked seeing the sky herself. Paying extra for that right seemed worth it in the end. There's a small balcony too. It's nice to sit there."
With a smile she nodded, finding her mother some food and returning swiftly. Her place was decorated in mostly blacks, glow in the dark stars scattered about, with the occasional ghost flitting in and out. Smiling she handed her mother the plate, "here you are." Then she set her hand on Hekuba's head. "This is Hekuba. Gale is around here, but they're mine. They'll do what you ask of them."
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[info]thefallingstar
2011-04-27 02:49 pm UTC (link) Track This
"That will be more than suitable for me," Asteria told her daughter. Watching her there was a temptation to reach out and do... something. Perhaps to hug her? Or stroke her cheek? But gestures like those were uncomfortable and unfamiliar, and Asteria kept her distance. To be touched made her hold her breath and freeze, an island once more. (She hadn't always been this way. Yes, she had never been overly affectionate but she had once been a woman of flesh and blood. She didn't feel like that any more, even if she was no longer rocky land.)
The ghosts Asteria ignored - to pay attention to them all the time was exhausting because they would only demand more of it - and she took the plate she was handed. "Thank you," she told her with the lightest incline of her head.
She looked at the hound and knew that it was no normal animal. "Hekuba," Asteria repeated, looking into its eyes. "The Trojan Queen."
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[info]torchywitch
2011-04-27 02:56 pm UTC (link) Track This
Hecate understood. Hecate had learned to love an island, with empty shores and without a voice. It was one of the very few things she could not forgive the Olympians for. "Stay for as long as you like. There's no rush." There would be time to catch up, and find a new sort of familiarity.
Smiling she sat down near her mother, just watching her for the longest time. It was nice to just do that again. Hekuba gave a whine at the old name and nudged Asteria's leg. Hecate just smiled, "after she threw herself off the walls I changed her. Took her in. Part of my retinue now." She settled her hands on her lap, "I run the shop. Hypnos works for me. Sometimes Hades visits." She bit her lip then, "and Hermes. They married me to him. At least sometimes." It was complicated and she doubted either of her parents would like knowing she had been married off to an Olympian.
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[info]thefallingstar
2011-04-27 06:59 pm UTC (link) Track This
Asteria had no place to be, no occupation to hold her anywhere. She would instead stay here with her daughter until she felt the need within her to move again.
The star-Titan watched her daughter just as Hecate watched her, studying this woman who had been born of her but hardly raised by her. She had turned out more powerful than than either of her parents, for which Asteria was both pleased and envious.
Her lips had already tightened at the mention of Hades visiting, but then to hear that they had married her daughter - her daughter! - off to the Olympian son of Zeus, that bastard king who deserved nothing and his children no more than that? That was truly a crime. Perhaps lucky that Perses wasn't here. He might tear the world down for such an arrogant act. (But then, he had been there when it happened, had he not? If she found out her husband had put up no fight against this then perhaps it was best Perses wasn't anywhere near Asteria right then.)
She had been silent for a long time, just watching her daughter with hardly an expression on her face, but she realised that something now was warranted. She frowned deeply (having to actually call up the expression intentionally) and said, in a deeply displeased manner, "hmmm."
No one had ever claimed that Asteria was a woman of many words.
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[info]torchywitch
2011-04-27 08:29 pm UTC (link) Track This
The displeased tone was enough for Hecate to lower her head. She who wouldn't bow to anyone was now hiding her eyes from her mother. Mainly because it was her
mother
. Perses could have done the same, but she imagined her father would have had less words and more actions.
She toyed with the sleeve of her dress, wanting to say HAdes wasn't a bad sort. Out of all the Olympians, she
liked
the Dead King. He got her, and she couldn't say that of many of them. She sighed, "It's only in his role as guider of the dead. Cthonian Hermes, they would call him." Maybe her mother would be less displeased if she knew Hecate was only married for a short period of time.
But she was honest to a fault. Besides her mother would learn of this somehow, there were ghosts with big mouths, and it was best to just say it all now. "He's got another wife. Peitho." So technically Hecate was a second wife, not exactly the most honorable of positions. "He's not a bad sort. Treats me well." She shrugged, "they couldn't leave me unmarried. Not when I'm like this. When I'm Maiden they could leave me be. But when you stand at the three pointed crossroad, they wanted to keep an eye on me. Couldn't give me to my cousins. Be too strong of a marriage I suppose. Daughter of Destruction and Stars married to a son of War and Hate? Politics." She shrugged and kept her eyes low.
"Anyway, my cousins are here too, all four of them. And Styx. No Pallas though." With Pallas, she assumed, would come Perses. War and Destruction were too close not to see them together.
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[info]thefallingstar
2011-04-29 11:54 pm UTC (link) Track This
Politics. Asteria cared nothing for that, and cared for it even less when it meant they forced her daughter into wedlock with an Olympian. And to hear that she wasn't even his only wife... at least Hecate believed she was treated well. "I suppose," she finally said, after a long time thinking of it, "that some things cannot be avoided."
Styx's children being around was good, because although they had been aligned to Zeus with their mother Asteria still had a certain amount of respect for them. (Anyone with self-preservation would retain at least a modicum of respect for the river Styx.) Pallas not be around meant Perses might not either, because as Hecate believed so did Asteria: the two often went together. "Pallas may not be far behind."
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[info]torchywitch
2011-04-30 02:14 am UTC (link) Track This
She let out a long breath. Her sometimes marriage was a bit confusing, even for her, but it gave her a lot of freedom. Hermes wasn't too bothered about what she did, and all in all the whole politics part of it was formality. She could have done worse. "He's not horrid. He wouldn't care what I do. I have all the freedom in the world. Besides, we have the whole thresholds thing in common." She wouldn't suggest her mother or, Stars forbid, her father to ever meet Hermes. She didn't see it going well.
"Good." Well sort of. Her family was complicated and sometimes distant. She knew her cousins had it a bit worse. Growing up with War and Hate as parents couldn't be fun. Hecate hadn't been forced into a position, and she'd retained all of her power when Zeus had taken the throne. One of these days she'd figure all that out.