Who: Dante, Dahlia and Mallory What: Reincarnation exposed Where: The Lot Home When: Backdated. Let's just leave it at that. Warning: Besides it being heavily backdated, none
Saturdays were Persephone day. As she had been the undisputed queen of the underworld, she was the undisputed queen of Saturday's, at least to Dante. His heart longed to dote on her, the same as his body longed to touch her and Saturday simply allowed him the time.
Like they had done last Saturday and the one before that, after breakfast, they had found one of the many couches in the house randomly and decided to make out on it. After all, it was important for newlyweds in a new house to make sure they made out on all couches. It was a rule somewhere… maybe…
Anyway, trapped slightly beneath him, Dante broke the kiss to nuzzle the side of her throat, murmuring, "You really need to learn to not breathe, love…"
"We...we're running out of couches," Dahlia commented a little breathlessly. She smiled, reaching up to run her fingers through his hair.
It brought a small, genuine smile to him as he instinctively eased his head against her warm fingers. "We can always buy more couches." Or move on to other pieces of furniture. The coffee table looked good, now that he looked at it.
"I saw a chaise I liked," Dahlia commented, kissing his chin.
"A good possibility." Dante returned that kiss partially by bringing his lips to her cheek, right before her ear, "We are also running out of eggs. We need to make sure we have groceries delivered before next week, too…"
"We still have English Muffins," Dahlia offered, running her hands over his back.
"Like eatin' those during the week though." Dante responded in turn as he shifted both of them so they were laying side by side on the couch, his hands now running over her back in kind. "Besides, I think Mallory is the reincarnation of a soul we judged in past. And eggs are such a good breakfast food." Those sentences almost blended together without notice.
Oh no. Dahlia was a little silly but not that silly. "W-w-w-wait!" She sat up, the mood thoroughly killed. "What?"
Dante had a feeling that would kill the mood, but it had to be said. He would make it up to her later. Right now, he sat up, only to carefully brush her hair from her still flushed face, "Remember how I said, I could feel her life before I could feel her? It's the same with another person, the reincarnation of Pelops." He had told her about him at the very least. Mostly because when it first became obvious who he was, it was bizarre to his mind and he needed to share.
"But...Mallory's fine..." Dahlia murmured. "There's nothing weird about her..."
"Except that I can feel her before I should and, wait…" Now Dante got up, kissing her cheek before he left the room only to return a few moments later with some photographs in hand, "And I found these sitting out on the kitchen table. Hard to deny things when you are looking at yourself." There in his hand was the photo of the art Mel had drawn for Mallory, of a woman strewn before a dark throne in a cave. The man on the throne with the vague features of his true face in shadow, with a woman standing beside him, placing her hand on his shoulder with Persephone's true features vaguely as well.
Dahlia studied the photograph, her brow creasing with a frown. "...yeah...but she didn't draw this. It isn't her picture." She was doing her best to remain skeptic.
Gently, he caressed her brow, "It isn't that its something we should fear, I don't think, love. But if she is, we should try to find out." He frowned now, remembering when he had last had a conversation with Mallory that wasn't pleasantries, "She has nightmares, right? Maybe we can help…"
Dahlia snuggled close to her husband, her frown increasing. "...you really think we could help her?"
"Help who?" The topic of the conversation, unknown to her, said as she walked into the room. She had been looking for the photos she took of Mel's artwork all morning, and this was next on the list of places to check. However, she hadn't counted on seeing both husband and wife there - and was rather glad talking was the only thing she walked in on.
If only she had walked in five minutes ago, but then again, she wouldn't have overheard a conversation. Dante looked to Dahlia and then to Mallory and then back to his wife, fighting his instincts and remaining close to his snuggled wife. He had a feeling she could use his strength and he pressed a gentle kiss against her hair before bringing his black eyes fully back to Mallory, "Maybe you would like to sit down."
"We should all sit," Dahlia added, dragging her husband down to the couch. She really hadn't wanted to do this now, but then Hades seemed to be in such a rush. "Dante...has some interesting theories on why you've been having those bad dreams lately. Don't you, dear?"
Mallory looked warily between Dahlia and Dante for a moment and slowly moved toward a place to sit. Well, she more or less perched herself on the edge of the seat as this didn't seem like it was going to be the sort of conversation where she wanted to get comfortable. She nodded, slightly, to Dahlia's words and instead of responding, simply shifted her gaze to the man.
He was only in a rush because he had serious doubts that they were all going to be same room again any time soon. Better strike when the iron was hot. With all the attention on him, he decided to choose his words very carefully, even for him, not completely wanting to have full confessions to be forced, "Do you believe in past lives?"
Dahlia rubbed her temples as if fighting off a nasty headache. If he wasn't right, she was going to be out the best assistant she'd ever had. Their weirdness hadn't driven Mallory away before, but this was a pointed attack of the strange.Dahlia was really fighting the urge to not kick him.
Slowly, she shrugged. Hello, weird conversation.
"Yea, I guess so. Past lives, old souls, I suppose there's always a possibility." She replied softly. The question of whether or not she believed in reincarnation and all that spiritual stuff didn't come up often, as such, she never put a whole lot of thought into it.
Dante nodded slowly to her words, considering his own as carefully as he had before. It would have been easier if he could just pull out some theoretical resume and show he had a lengthy stay as Lord God of the Dead and thus was never wrong about these things when he finally chose to speak of them, but he could not. The resume did not exist and for his wife's sake, even if it did, he wouldn't. It was time to use his mortal back story to justify words. "Grew up in India and have heard a lot of tales like your own. Nightmares and dreams acting as the mind and the soul's agency to remember a past forgotten."
Dahlia sighed, staring at her nails. She didn't even know if she swallowed his theory in entirety. How the heck did one get out of the Underworld? No. Hell!? How did one get out of Hell?? She knew Hell. She'd been there when it had first been raised. How she had even gotten out of there with her sanity in tact. She shuddered slightly, gnawing on the pad of her thumb.
"Uh huh," she said with a small frown in Dante's direction, glanced at Dahlia, and finally simply looked around as it seemed far too awkward to look at either of them for too long. "I take it you've talked to Cadance?"
If a frown was not Dante's default facial expression, a frown would have appeared now. Instead it only deepened while confusion flickered against his coal black eyes. "Um, as I don't know who Cadance is, gonna have to say no." His eyes shifted to glance at his wife. Seriously, he was not talking to mystery women about her personal assistant. And to think he thought he would be the one saying confusing statements.
Dahlia shook her head. "No, Mallory. He's talking about something different. He gets hunches sometimes." Suddenly, that piece of lint in the corner of the room was very interesting...
"Long blonde hair, likes archery, into metaphysical stuff. Funny you don't know her, as she knew who you were without me having to say anything. Said you were her aunt and uncle actually," Mallory glanced from Dahlia to Dante, and crossed her arms over her chest. Go ahead, explain that hunch.
It took all of Dante's discipline and self-control not to sigh. All of it. He loved his family. But sometimes he also really despised them. When and if he and obviously Artemis met, he was going to make a point of discussing what not to say to random human mortals on the street. But now was not the time for that. Mallory had crossed her arms, a single that she was perhaps closing herself off and stubbornly suspicious and probably a little annoyed. However, it also meant she was holding her ground and listening... Or at least that's how the small section of his attention was reading it. "Might be able to make sense of the dreams... if you tell me something about them. Know they are personal, but..."
Tell the man who knows all his dead by name... He stared at Mallory. He honestly thought he could help.
"You can trust him," Dahlia murmured softly. She looked up at her assistant sympathetically. "We haven't talked to your friend, but we do want to help..."
She sighed. "And how exactly do you intend on doing that?" As insecurity began to set in a bit, Mallory decided that staring down at the floor was a much better choice than glancing between the two.
"If it is a past life, then your soul might be in inner turmoil as it tries to sort out two life times. But bringing both lives to light will bring peace to you." Dante began his little speech, trying to think of things to say that weren't 'I'm a death lord. Listen to me.' "Then the nightmares would stop..."
Dahlia crossed the room, sitting herself next to Mallory. "It's really okay...it's probably nothing honey." She murmured this softly, wrapping an arm around the girl. "But if there's any way to keep you from walking around like an insomniatic zombie, I think it's worth looking into."
"Or doing things that I shouldn't know how to do, or at least remember learning." Mallory mumbled and let her head rest against Dahlia's shoulder.
"Or doing things like that." Dante eyed her curiously. He wondered what those things were, but if she had met Artemis it was probably archery and archery was going to narrow things down to thousands. Not good enough, "Will you tell me your most striking dream?"
"Anything you remember would be a big help," Dahlia said, trying to reassure the girl.
Mallory gave a small nod toward the photos the pair was looking at before her arrival. "The one with the three, Mel drew that while I told her of it. I don't normally remember a lot. Sometimes like...," she paused, and pulled her legs closer to the rest of her, her hand holding onto one ankle as she spoke, "Like being chased through the woods. And two people on a throne in darkness, I can't ever see their faces."
Bingo. Dante glanced over to Dahlia and then quickly returned his attention to Mallory. "Do the two people ever speak to you? Say anything at all?"
Dammit! Dahlia hadn't wanted him to be right about this.
Slowly, she shrugged. "If they do, I don't remember it. I can only remember bits and pieces."
When it came to the dead, Dante was always right. At least when he bothered to bring something up. But now he turned his wedding band in a complete circle around his finger in thought. This would be easier if he knew what he said to this girl's soul. "Do you know what you are running from?"
"Someone. A person, I could never see them much either," oh hey look, there was a rug stitch that was out of place, "Sometimes I hear this buzzing noise. Not that that helps."
"Buzzing?" Well maybe Hades remembered something she didn't. That didn't seem to make much sense.
She shrugged. "Kind of like a bee, I guess."
A bee? If Mallory was Desa, daughter of Denzil, of Athens this was all going to be anticlimatic. But then again, Dante shook such thoughts away. Desa had been stung by thousands of bees, had nothing to do with archery and never ran a day in her life. He had to do better than this. "Do you hear the bees and then see the two on the throne in the darkness?"
Dahlia sighed. She could tell this was going to take awhile. "I'm going to go put on some coffee..." She rose from the couch, scuttling into the kitchen.
"Yea. Well, as far as remembering dream bits go." She replied, her gaze turning from the floor to watch Dahlia walk off towards the kitchen.
Dante turned his gaze to watch as Dahlia left as well. Now he was at a crossroads and returning his attention to Mallory. "Do you believe in magic?" he whispered now.
Mallory simply stared at Dante for a long moment. Did she just hear him right? "Magic?" She responded in a whisper, "Uhm, I'm assuming you don't mean like the David Copperfield magic. I... don't know? I guess."
Dante looked over his shoulder carefully. Still no wife again. "Well, it won't work if you don't believe..." Which was a lie. This was all becoming an elaborate cover story...
"What are you two talking about in there?" Dahlia called out.
"...Are you kidding me?" Mallory whispered back in disbelief, though she didn't bother to relate the apparent madness of Dante to his wife when she called. "Tea and biscuits," she answered.
Uh oh. Wrong answer. Though tea and biscuits sounded good. No, focus. Death work. Dante softened his voice even further, "Do you want to know what these dreams are or not?"
"You want to have them? You can have biscuits, but I'm not making tea...the coffee's almost done!" Dahlia called back.
"Coffee and bicsuits, then." She called to the kitchen and turned back to whisper to Dante. "Fine. Just get on with it." As Dahlia said, coffee was almost done.
"Good." He whispered and then quickly decided how to fake this. How did people do magic in movies? Oh, yes, he knew... Dante reached over and plucked a piece of hair from Mallory's head. Quickly, he snatched his lighter from his pocket and burnt the small strand while muttering nonsense words. He caught the meaningless smoke and ash in his hands and then reached out and took Mallory's hand. Now for something real. He pressed his power into her. His power could make shades visible and tangible... Past life memories to be made a bit more clear would be much easier...
At first, she thought it was entirely ridiculous. Then, the slightly odd sensation she may have thought she felt made her wonder if she was just being silly. Either way, Mallory looked back at Dante somewhat expectantly, almost as if she was waiting for a sign that she was on Candid Camera or something.
Dante removed his hand but not his focus. "Now think. What are you running from?"
Okay, now this was just weird, and her facial expression showed that realization as she spoke. "A man, tall, fair-haired and bearded. And naked." And that was a part she wished she hadn't managed to visualize.
"Coffee?" Dahlia cooed, coming back in with a tray that she set down on the table. "Where are we?" she asked, sitting next to Mallory and brushing the girl's hair back in an attempt to be comforting.
"We were at the buzzing, Love." It didn't sound like they had made an progress but oh yes, they had. "Think hard now. What is causing it?"
Course, she didn't really have to think all that hard any more, but she did for show anyhow. "Bees. Distant, but still bees."
"Oh good. I'm glad so much has happened in my absence," she laughed, rolling her eyes and practically forcing a coffee mug into Mallory's hands. That was a good girl~ Coffee make things less traumatic, see?
"Bees in the distance..." Dante muttered to himself, "Do you know what brings you to the throne? It should be a powerful flash of a memory. Concentrate and find it."
It took a minute or so of sipping coffee as she tried to run through the images again in her head, using the new clarity as an advantage. Though, when she saw it, Mallory recoiled into her seat instinctively with a small hiss. "A snake. A bite."
Dahlia's demeanor instantly changed. She inhaled sharply, catching a bit of biscuit in her throat. She sputtered in surprise, coughing loudly. Absolutely not! That was impossible!
It was like a slot machine in Dante' s mind eye. The three slots lined up and the machine spit out her name. Eurydice. Or at least it sounded like it. Bees, running, snake. If there was a lyre in this story it would be set. So... "Do you ever remember a musician?" Just to be sure.
Mallory's hands were shaking, and it took quite a bit of effort to get the coffee to travel to her mouth without spilling it all over herself. "Sort of. The dream doesn't last long after I see the two on the throne, but sometimes there's music. It's faint."
Dahlia began to cry. It was Eurydice. Her poor hand maiden Eurydice who had been in Hell. Stuck in Hell, and she was free and here now. She had gotten back the life that Persephone had always wanted to give her. The relief that the queen of the Underworld felt at that moment was staggering.
Dante reached out and took his wife's hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. Mystery solved. At least for them. His eyes remained on Mallory. He had to tell her who she was, yes. But not who they were. It was not his place. "When I went to college, I studied mythology... It sounds like Eurydice."
Mallory cast Dante a quick look, though most of her attention remained on Dahlia. She knew the myth only loosely from her school studies, but the name rung out as familiar. However, Dahlia's reaction was a little confusing.
"[My poor Eurydice...]" Dahlia sobbed, pressing against her husband's side.
Dante wrapped his arms around his sobbing wife and whispered into her ears, "[Love, careful now. Careful.]"
Mallory blinked, her eyes jumping between Dante and Dahlia. "Careful? Careful about what, exactly," she question in a slightly panicked voice as she stood to face the couple. If things weren't weird before, they were now.
Dahlia lifted her head up sharply, casting an icy look of surprise over at Mallory. "You understood that?"
Dante glanced at the mortal woman as well, loosening though not releasing his grip on his wife. Now this was interesting. "[If you can understand what I'm saying, tell us I just mentioned the word 'elephant'.]"
"Elephant." She replied with a frown, looking at Dante as if it was a silly request for him to have made. Only it wasn't, really. She just was beginning to feel like an utter fool.
"You were right..." Dahlia murmured to Hades. "You were one hundred percent right." Frowning, she rose to her feet and drifted out of the room. Her feet were light on the stairs as she hurried up to her room and shut the door behind her.
His eyes followed her up the stairs and then shifted to look to Mallory again. Lovely. Now what? His planning had not gotten this far. "[So…]"
Mallory watched Dahlia leave, and turned to Dante "...What the fuck?"
"Believe 'the fuck' is," He replied as he shifted back to English and his British accent, "Dahlia wanted me to be wrong and I wasn't, [Eurydice]."
"Fuck," breathed the brunette as she brought her hands up to rub her temples in frustration as she started to pace. This wasn't right - it wasn't even particularly natural. Then, Mallory looked suddenly to Dante, "What language were you speaking?"
"Ancient Greek." At this point Dante didn't see the reason to lie, while at the same time didn't want to admit too much to anything. He didn't know what Dahlia wanted to do. "Perhaps you should talk to her…"
Mallory looked at Dante as if he had just turned purple. "You have got to be kidding me," she breathed and rushed out of the room to find Dahlia. Why? She didn't know, but hell, Dante suggested it.
Dahlia was curled up on her bed. Why couldn't things ever be normal for her family? If they couldn't rule the world, why dredge up this ancient history. Things had changed. She had changed. Eurydice...had undoubtedly changed.
Finding the door closed but surprisingly unlocked, Mallory knocked lightly and popped the door ajar just enough to talk through it. "Dahlia?
Sniffle.
Well, with that rather uneventful response, she opted to risk it and pop her head into the door. If nothing flew at her, she would enter the remainder of the way. "Dahlia, uhm... stop crying." Oh yea, Mallory, that was brilliant.
Which of course, only caused Dahlia to cry even harder. She curled up against a pillow, her back curled away from the door.
She was at a complete loss of what to say, so instead she figured she'd just speak. At this point, she figured things couldn't be too much worse. "Are you that upset to see me back?" Wow. That was weird to say.
"No!" Dahlia squeaked, turning her glassy eyes up to Eurydice. "I'm. I'm so glad to have someone so close to me...so close to me...but...I just know a lot has changed. I want to hope not for the worst, but..." In her experience? The worst was what she got. Just look at the situation with Hades and Hestia.
Mallory stayed silent for a long time before stepping closer to the bed. "So this is a little freaky, yes. But I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. You can count on that one." She held out her hand to the other woman. Yes, come back downstairs~
Dahlia sniffled, rubbing her eyes before taking Mallory's hand. "I must look really silly..." Off the bed with ye!
"You look fine," puffiness, tears, and redness aside. She helped to hoist her friend, her boss, and someone else in relation to her that she wasn't exactly sure of yet onto her feet and back down to Dante.
Dante turned his head as he heard people descend back down the stairs and stood up, "Everything okay?" Please everything be okay…
"M'okay," Dahlia murmured, wiping the tears off her red face. "Just a little freak out of surprise."
"No kidding,' Mallory murmured in agreement and waited until Dahlia was settled before returning to her pacing.
Dante offered his hand to his wife to bring her close for comfort sake. He didn’t quite know what to do besides that for her. His eyes shifted to Mallory's pacing, "You still write your own story, even if you have a prequel, you know… If that helps."
Dahlia nodded in agreeance. "You...you have a life now. A real life. A good one. And you can spend it anyway you want...not just trapped in the darkness and death."
Said the man who helped to condemn her, and the woman who had saved her. Or at least she was pretty damned sure at this point who was sitting on that couch. "And what happens now? I go on like normal - like nothing ever happened? Or what?"
"That's up to you." Dante replied, ignoring everything said and unsaid in this room at the moment. He didn't quite care for it; people were being emotional. "This is your life to live. Live it. That's what happens now."
"Or...." Dahlia perked up, glancing over at Mallory with a warm smile. "Going shopping could be what happens now. My treat?"
Mallory let out a heavy sigh and nodded. "Yea. I think that might do me some good."
Summary: Dante and Dahlia were spending another pleasant Saturday together when Dante brings up that he is pretty sure that they judged Mallory way back when. Mallory overhears them talking and the truth comes.