Antigone had had a week of stress and worry, broken only by her lunch with Asterion a couple of days ago. How had she got to the point in her life, she wondered, where eating fries with a minotaur was legitimately the high point of her week?
She'd come to Diogenes so she could drink and write, sitting by herself in a booth, drinking gin and tonics and working on a stream of consciousness that was probably too messy to turn into anything publishable, if she was being honest.
If she was being really honest, she was only here because she couldn't handle being at home right now where the cut on Romeo's lip demanded of her why didn't you stop this. Because seeing it made Antigone despise herself for her inaction.
So when she turned her head when she saw a slim, tattooed woman walk past her booth, and saw Ares, right here, just over her shoulder, just a table away, she knew, already, what she had to do.
But first she listened, in absolute horror (but not a lot of surprise) at the scraps of their conversation she managed to catch. She couldn't hear everything, but the words threatening to rape me to death had stood out like a beacon, cutting through the louder conversation in the booth behind her.
As soon as Ares left, she moved, straight into the chair he'd been sitting in opposite the young woman. Fuck - she thought, in rising horror as she got closer - this woman was mortal. "Do you need help?"