InsaneJournal

There were days when Melpomene woke up hollow, an expanse within her so vast it swallowed everything. There was a bitter irony in feeling so empty in her heart and so full in her womb; maybe it was Thalia’s influence that she could see the humour in it, even if the humour felt like lemon juice on an open wound.

On the worst days, on the days when her heart was an open grave and her hands were blistered raw from digging, she thought about Alan and the things he would do to soothe her, even though soothing was the last thing she wanted, or needed, or deserved. And then the only thing to do was focus so intently on thoughts of the future that it blinded her to anything else or she might lay down and give up on the spot.

She’d chosen this path – and it was just a cruel trick of fate that the other impossible path kept calling her name.

She was used to fate being cruel. So the world felt hollow?

So what?

She would just have to fill in this emptiness herself.

Did Apollo ever feel this emptiness? No. Did Ares? Aphrodite? Anyone with real power? No, of course not. The world knew their names, the world had stories and stories of each of them, layered on top of each other. The world had statues and vases and paintings, had spaceships and cultural references galore.

But she had Ares’ child. Apollo’s love. Aphrodite’s wrath. She was not nothing.

She would not be nothing.

Melpomene kept telling herself this from where she had to sit, in the back of the amphitheater. In the back. The shame could have crippled her, but as it was, it was only one more drop in a turbulent ocean.

There was one small positive. She’d had to walk down so many steps to get here, and she would have to walk up so many more to get back to the surface. The arena, and the dais, was below her. At least, sitting here, there were less stairs to manage than there would be if she sat beside Ares. Her body could be grateful while her heart yearned to be down there, sitting on that throne at his side, but he’d never allow it, not now.

For fucks sake you’re not even meant be there he’d said. She should take it as a victory that he’d allowed her in at all.

It didn’t feel like a victory.

(What would Alan think of this? He would hate it. He would hate it. She shifted uncomfortably as the grief threatened to hollow her out again, then snapped at herself why? It’s not as if he’ll take you back now anyway, whatever you do. You refused to give up Apollo. You had sex with Will Scarlet. You’re an unforgivable creature, so be unforgivable. Embrace it. You’ve already gone this far.)

Her eyes caught Ares’ gaze as he rallied the crowd, his voice filling the amphitheater, his voice sending a shiver across her skin. His power here was undeniable and enviable, she hungered for the way his men chanted his name, to be so remembered. She’d found a little power here too, not as much as she wanted, but she had had some power over him. He’d changed his rules for her, let her in, let Tragos live, for her. His blood boiled hotter for her. Ares didn’t want to admit it, but she’d influenced him, no doubt.

And seeing his influence on her was as easy looking at her; he’d re-written her body. Melpomene wasn’t going to admit he’d re-written anything else about her... but her body, definitely. Meeting his eye in the amphitheater tonight made her cunt clench with the memory of his dick, his fingers pushing into her while his eye bore right through her. The way he grabbed her hair in his fist, the way he claimed her body, her skin a canvas for the art his hands and his mouth left on her for days after each fuck. She’d been his, and he’d taken up so much room that it was impossible to think of herself in any other way.

And now she was torn in two and didn’t belong to either.

Down on the sand, Ares backed off and let Tragos and his opponent take their places, and the crowd shook the arena down with their roaring. Tragos met her eyes, and while he did look at her like he was devoted, she knew he was torn, too. Ares had been firm about that.

Tragos is still my man. He works for me. You borrow him. Sometimes.

And she hadn’t missed the fact that Tragos had stopped her kissing him by bringing up Aphrodite last time she'd seen him. She hadn’t realised it at first, too focused on her rage at Aphrodite but... that’s what he’d done. And that was Marcie’s hold on him, Melpomene was sure.

But he kissed his fist and raised it to her before his fight, and right now Marcie was nowhere to be seen.

Sometimes you just had to blind yourself to some thing to focus on what you had left.

"You’ll love me,” she whispered, trailing the back of her fingers over the curve below her ribs. Melpomene closed her eyes for a moment, a silent prayer in which she swore she’d give this kid everything, and then she opened her eyes and forced herself to stop thinking about anything other than Tragos’ fight.

And he was spectacular. The speed of him, the agility, the cleverness in his actions. Letting the vicious heat of this moment take her over was easy, watching the art of the way he moved, his confidence as he made a show out of it. I did that Melpomene told herself, because without her he’d have died in shame last summer. At least she could hold tightly onto that, and see the very real difference she’d made in the world. All it took was one little action, sometimes, and look how things could blossom...

She was not nothing.

After the fight she let the river of people push her along, relishing their presence (and the fact that being dragged along by a crowd made it a little easier to move). She broke away near the top of the stairs, taking a rest against a wall to get her missing breath back for a while. These lungs just didn’t have the capacity that they used to, and she didn’t want Ares to see her so breathless, not when he wasn’t the one that had made her that way (well he was, indirectly, but she’d still rather get her breath back before she saw him.)

She’d put a lot of effort into her look tonight, not wanting to be easily dismissed or forgettable. Her short black dress twisted over her belly but left her thighs bare above her knee high boots. The long leather coat was styled to look like armor, lined in a deep bloody red. Her hair was the one thing she hadn’t needed to do anything to, it was looking absolutely fucking luscious, and her eyes were shadowy and dark.

Everything hurt, sure, but what was new? Comfort was a sacrifice she had been willing to make.

In the corridor up ahead, Ares was talking to Tragos and one of his generals, and as the third man peeled away with a sharp salute, she moved forward. Tragos spotted her first – Ares had his back to her, and she gave Tragos a dark, slow smile, laying a hand on Ares’ impressive bicep as she stepped around him. “Ares,” she said, addressing him first, keeping her hand on him as she spoke, a smile on her dark lips. “What a night, Laossous. What a privilege to be here.”