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𝑙𝑢𝑛𝑎 𝑜𝑙𝑚𝑜𝑠 🌘 (holyrites) wrote in nevermore_logs,
@ 2021-06-30 14:26:00

Entry tags:

ariadne, luna olmos

WHO Luna & Ariadne
WHEN Thursday afternoon
WHERE Some Manhattan street
WHAT Hey, aren't you my skeleton twin?
WARNINGS

It should have been illegal for it to be this hot. Luna felt like the buildings around her were actually going to start melting if it went up even one more degree, and when she'd seen a man earlier carrying a small electric fan plugged into a massive power pack at his waist she had never more wanted to befriend a person for ulterior motives.

Luna, at least, was quite fortunate that she was driving between places instead of having to ride the train, a special hell all of their own in the summer. The smells and sensations of NYC public transport while the sun beat down were indescribable- which was maybe for the best. Any description would have to contain too many uses of the words 'fetid' and 'repugnant'.

As she drove around, Luna was trying not to have the air-con up too high in the car, as the blast of hot humid air whenever she climbed out of it felt murderous, but at least it was slightly less of a shock if she wasn't leaving an artic vehicle. But, oh, how tempting to just remain in the cold car all day. She'd been doing that a lot this summer, driving basically to the front door of everything she had scheduled and walking nowhere.

Over the last few weeks, Luna had been weaning herself off the long sleeves, because it was just too damn hot to keep it up, and she had decided that her scars on display was far preferable to overheating. It was still a little uncomfortable to have them on such full view, but Luna was getting used to how much a part of her they were. She'd been through something and come out the other side, and she had the marks to prove it, even if they were marks she hated.

Strangers seeing them wasn't so bad anyway. It was people she knew seeing them that made her more uncomfortable. People who knew her would be the ones more likely to gasp and ask 'what happened??' Even Tinsel, who had seen her when they were nothing more than stripped skin, hadn't really seen them since that day. Will had only ever seen a glance of them at the wrist one night.

And, of course, the people she slept with regularly saw them, as well as anyone that Peitho or Hermes offered her up to. Last week Dionysus had been lying with her in Peitho's bed, running a soft finger up through the middle of one of them. "I could turn these into flourishing vines," he'd told her with a quiet grandiosity. They'd only met half an hour ago.

"I wish you wouldn't," had been Luna's firm reply. She didn't need to be vines, thank you very much, and she didn't need some god stepping in to improve her because he felt like it. Luna was working on her own improvements, and currently that involved letting herself be seen.

Although she'd enjoyed sleeping with Dionysus- the way that he'd had pulled her back by the hair and whispered, "you're so fucking sexy" in her ear from behind had made her melt -there had been a part of her that resented that it had been expected of her, and a part of Luna that resented herself for never putting her foot down and saying no. But it was hard not to feel amazing to be so desired by immortal and eternal beings, and sometimes it was only afterwards that she had to ask herself if she'd even wanted it. Did she actually want to be fucked and desired, or was she still just a dumb kid searching for parents who would notice her existence? It was, after all, impossible for Luna to deny the power a simple 'good girl' had over her, no matter what context it arrived in.

That night, after the party, she had found her courage as she cleaned up glasses to be washed and approached Peitho and Hermes were they were curled up together on the couch. She'd told them she needed to talk to them. Standing there she had tried to find the words to say I love you both so much, but I don't think this is where I'm supposed to be anymore..

She couldn't find those words. Instead she just asked if she could have all of next weekend off. They acquiesced without pause and drawn her into their warm arms.

And that was it. Nothing changed.

But Luna was trying not to think about that moment of weakness, and had already decided that next time, when it was really going to happen, she would do it properly. She would tell them what she needed.

Right now, on this sizzling afternoon, what Luna felt like she needed was to go swimming.

None of her errands today had been very professional - shopping, dry-cleaning, picking up flowers - and so Luna hadn't felt the need to dress in anything resembling professional. Instead she was wearing an old Lord of the Rings mini dress she'd just found on Depop (for a total steal) and a pair of strappy black heels that let her feet breathe as much as possible.

Coming out of the drycleaners after dropping of a few of Peitho's suits, Luna sighed heavily at the heat and pulling out her hair so that she could redo the ponytail a little higher, a little more out of the way.

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findyourwayout
2021-06-30 11:02 am UTC (link)

Ariadne had a complex relationship with her parentage, one she'd had thousands of years to try to find a way to live with and yet still knocked her for six sometimes. Both her parents were people who'd dramatically shaped her, their actions and wills larger than life in the way royalty had been in those days (and larger than life in a way parents still could be, these days) but there was one thing in particular that she was grateful for, at the start of what was proving to be a disastrously hot summer; her grandfather.

Helios, titan of the sun. Without his blood in her veins, she'd be just as much of a sweating, swearing, angrily exhausted mess as the students she shared an office at university with, who were both vying for position by the solitary office fan. She'd be running her wrists under water and wrapping a wet, refrigerated scarf around her head just to cool off enough to get some work done.

Instead, Ariadne swapped desks with Niamh so she could sit with her back to the sun, her complex plait (courtesy of Dionysus) shining like gold in the light. "I hate you," said Niamh, who was the one wrapped in a refrigerated scarf. "Don't even look at me, you utter cow."

Ariadne had smiled at her and ordered ice coffees to be delivered to their door, and had trotted downstairs, barefoot in her little crop top and wide light trousers, to collect them (and tip the sweating driver, generously). Niamh wept "cow" into her cold drink in gratitude, envy or both.

When the fan had died after lunch, though, the despair in the office had been too much, and everyone gave up. Ariadne did too; sure, divine descendancy from the sun himself helped, but it wasn't pleasant sitting inside a small, stuffy office when it was in the high nineties outside.

And lately, pleasure was the name of the game. Fun! Joy! New experiences, new people, anything that invoked passion and the art of being alive. Yes, it was getting a tad hard to balance this modus vivendi with the last stages of a thesis but... Dionysus just had a stronger gravitation pull right now.

So she slipped her feet back into her sandals and left campus, dreaming about throwing herself in some sea, though the sea in her imagination was so blue it hurt her eyes, clear and endless and (she admitted to herself) fully romantisised.

The young woman coming out of the drycleaners caught her eye with her striking tattoos and style, and Ariadne watched as she pulled up her hair, trying to work out if it was the girl she'd spoken to online. Possibly? One way to find out: Ariadne, still a few shops away, cupped her hands around her mouth and sang a question toward the girl (and several dozen strangers: "Spooky scary skeletons send shivers down your spine!?"

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holyrites
2021-07-01 09:08 am UTC (link)

Luna- like half the other people on the street- turned to look at where the singing was coming from, trying to work out who might be singing in this heat. It was a blonde woman in cute plaid: she didn't look like the type who would be singing about skeletons.

But... a blonde woman and skeletons. Luna's heated brain thought something about that, and she was running through the possibilities before it finally came to her. Ariadne, mistress of the labyrinth and wife of Dionysus. (He'd even mentioned her the other night, pausing as he kissed her calf to point at the tattoo of a cartoon cat covered in a sheet like a ghost, the word BOO! beneath it. "My wife would love this one," he said with adoration, as he plowed Luna into the bed.)

Luna made a considering face at the woman and then mimed putting on a hat and mouthed Hattie?

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	findyourwayout 2021-07-01 09:30 am UTC (link)
	Hattie! Ariadne beamed, so taken with that nickname, and swept her pinched fingers across the brim of her imaginary hat, winked roguishly at Luna before pulling it off and sweeping a deep bow of greeting. Rising, she set the hat with care on top of Luna's flushed head. "Now who's Hattie?" (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	holyrites 2021-07-01 11:09 am UTC (link)
	"Does it suit me?" Luna asked, now one hundred percent sure that this was Ariadne and not some other strange blonde hollering about skeletons. She reached up as though to tip the brim. "I'm usually more of an imaginary wide brimmed hat." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	findyourwayout 2021-07-02 12:14 am UTC (link)
	"Of course it suits you, you're gorgeous," Ariadne said, flicking the brim of Luna's hat and stepping back a little to take in the dress. "Fantastic, I have such a thing for maps," she said, distracted, before manners paraded their way back in and she lifted her eyes to Luna's face again. "Luna! Hello, what a pleasure!" (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	holyrites 2021-07-02 11:54 am UTC (link)
	And there it was, the thrill of praise from another god. Luna stored it away and grinned at Ariadne. "A mutual pleasure," Luna reminded her, "I hope." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

findyourwayout
2021-07-03 05:05 am UTC (link)

Ooh she was flirty in real life as well. Sometimes online personas were so different to how people acted in real life, but Luna seemed as friendly and a little bit naughty as she did online, and Ariadne could absolutely climb on board that train. "Do you have time to find out?" she asked. "We never did get that drink, and I know we were supposed to be skeleton twins but... maybe we'll just have to be covert skeletons."

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	holyrites 2021-07-03 07:15 am UTC (link)
	"I'd love that. And I'm actually wearing a skeleton under all this," Luna said, gesturing to her body, before adding: "I'd burst into flames in that actual bodysuit today." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

findyourwayout
2021-07-03 08:07 am UTC (link)

Ariadne wiggled an oh really? with her eyebrows at Luna's gesture toward her dress, and if they knew each other better she might have cheekily inched a finger under her hem to search for skeletons, but they didn't, so hem inching and, in fact, anything to do with fingers, would keep. And maybe nothing would happen at all, maybe Luna's flirting was all talk, that would still be fun. Maybe the main thing Ariadne was looking forward to was getting to know someone normal who knew the ins and outs of a very dramatic pantheon.

"Icy cold afternoon cocktails?" she suggested. "I know a place or seven." Funny how quickly she'd become familiar with any interesting bar in Manhattan since meeting Dion again.

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holyrites
2021-07-03 08:15 am UTC (link)

"God yes," Luna agreed with a smile, already imagining the relief of a cold drink in her hand. "Guide me towards anything with ice."

Ariadne was a little taller than Luna, even though she was in flats and Luna was in heels, but that was hardly unusual for her. "I've gotta say," Luna said, observing her beautiful braided blonde hair and general glowing demeanor, "you look like you're barely suffering in this heat."

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findyourwayout
2021-07-03 10:58 am UTC (link)

"I like the sun," Ariadne said with a smile, tilting her face up toward the sky as they walked, squinting hard at the reflections of the sun on the thousands of planes of glass above them. "I know it's too much. I know the humidity makes everything disgusting. I know the heat makes that cooked-urine city smell just the worst, but all of it combines in a way that is unique to this place. You can't confuse it with any other place in the world and I'm grateful for that. It helps with the suffering." She left a small beat. "Though honestly having a sun god for a grandfather plays its part."

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holyrites
2021-07-04 10:19 am UTC (link)

"Ah," Luna said knowingly, at the comment about her grandfather. (She wasn't quite sure which one was Ariadne's. Apollo? Helios? Were there some others she wasn't remembering?) "That must be where I went wrong: not a single one of my grandparents is a sun god."

"But," she said, looking towards Ariadne as they walked, "I get that, about the city being unique. There's a lot of awful things about New York, but I fall more in love with it every day."

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