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tsarisfanfiction · 2 years ago

Text

A Single Drachma

Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians Rated: Teen Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Friendship Characters: Michael, Clarisse, Chris Alone. Injured. Hunted. Michael doesn't know where he is, but he knows he's running out of time, and he's only got one shot at calling for help. He's got to make it count. I'm a bit late posting it here because rl, but this was a fic written for @pod-together and my podficcer partner for the event was once again the amazing @stereden, who I also worked with for this event last year and once again had an absolute blast with! I pushed the boat out rather further this year in terms of length (there is actually a lot more to this story planned, but it became unrealistic to podfic... that being said I am still hoping to finish writing it at some point, for all that this does currently work as a stand-alone). We both had a lot more free time this year, and we definitely made sure we used it! I've lost count of how many times I've listened to Stereden's various takes on the podfic but it's been so much fun to work with her on this again this year! I was in a massive Michael&Clarisse mood when the event first started, and Stereden is a fantastic enabler who was more than willing to let them be the focus of the plot for our project, so here we are, and I hope you all enjoyed reading and listening to this as much as I did creating it! You can find the podfic to listen to here (go, listen to it! It’s amazing!)

After so long in darkness, the light of the sun was blinding. Michael’s tolerance for bright lights had always been higher than most, just like his siblings, but as he staggered out onto the street, limping heavily and doing his utmost to ignore the various signals of this fucking hurts different parts of his body were sending to his brain in discordant harmony, his eyes narrowed into a blurry squint. He stumbled, biting back a curse as his leg protested loudly at the bulk of his weight being forced onto it, and raised a dirty, shaking hand to shade his watering eyes from the worst of the glare.

Where was he?

With a wince he couldn’t hold back, he limped a few steps forwards, impatiently waiting for his eyes to adjust to the brightness, until he almost collided with a wall. Knocking his shoulder - the less-bad one, the one that was only bruised and not taunting him with fears of dislocation - against it, he awkwardly shuffled until he was leaning heavily against the painted brickwork, shifting his weight until it was off of his right leg.

It still had the audacity to fucking hurt, and Michael could feel his left leg trembling from the strain, less injured but no less exhausted than the rest of his body, but there was nothing he could do about it except lean harder on his shoulder, shoving as much of his weight as possible onto the building.

He needed to keep moving; he knew that. His arm stung, his newest injury still bleeding sluggishly. Michael could hear the slow yet steady drip, drip, drip of the liquid onto the ground. He’d run out of useable fabric to tear into makeshift bandages a while back - his clothes were in tatters, and stained with so many things he didn’t want to think about that using them to wrap an open wound was probably begging for a dose of tetanus, as though he needed any more problems on top of everything he had already.

Leaning against the building was the most relief he’d had in days, though, and Michael was at loathe to give it up. He glanced towards the sun again, still blindingly bright and near-impossible to look at. Hi, Dad, he thought, his mental tone somewhere between bitterness and despair. Apollo hadn’t contacted him for a long time, not since the night before they left for Manhattan, and Michael missed his father’s dream visits. He didn’t understand why they’d stopped - he’d feared, for a while, that Apollo had fallen to Typhon , that despite the lack of Kronos stomping around suggesting that they’d won the war his father had been lost for good.

Deep down, he still feared that - despite the freak saying things to the contrary - because if it wasn’t true, if Apollo hadn’t been destroyed, then that meant his father had been ignoring all of his pleas for help.

Apollo had been answering him reliably since he was a small kid, before he’d even realised the guy he dreamed about frequently was real and his father. There was no good reason for him to have stopped.

And yet he had.

Where the fuck are you, Dad? he thought at the sun. And where the fuck am I?

He lowered his hand, squinting against the bright light of the sun as it inflicted a fresh assault on his eyeballs, and took stock of his surroundings.

It was some sort of side street. Not enclosed enough to be an alley but no major thoroughfare - Michael could see a busier street, if he squinted against the shadows and too-bright sun hard enough, running perpendicular to the end of the street he was in. People passed through with purpose, none of them batting an eyelid at a messy, injured demigod leaning against the painted bricks and no doubt leaving some crimson stains behind. Was that the Mist at work, or was he somewhere where no-one even noticed bleeding teens?

Michael didn’t really care. Both options were far better than where he’d been, where he was running from.

He needed to keep moving, no matter how much his body protested, but first he needed a plan. Running blindly wouldn’t help; he hadn’t shaken his pursuers despite his best efforts so far, and he wasn’t naive enough to hope he’d shaken them now, either. But now that he was out, he had a chance.

His hand tightened its grip around his precious prize, the one small shard of hope that had crossed his path amongst the pain and fear. Firm edges pressed into his palm in a way that would be almost painful, if his body’s resting pain threshold wasn’t currently up around ten out of ten, a reassurance that he hadn’t lost it, hadn’t dropped it as he ran.

Michael had no weapons. He had no way to fight off his pursuers, no way to make them stop following him for good. Hand-to-hand had been out of the question even before the injuries started stacking up; he’d never done well enough in that during training to treat it as anything other than a last, desperate, resort. Here, where defeat meant getting dragged back to the freak, it was even lower on his list of non-existent options than normal.

But what he did have was one, single golden drachma. A stroke of luck amongst everything else, because drachma meant communication, and communication meant help. He could call Chiron, ask the old centaur to send someone his way, and warn him about the freak while he was at it.

Once he knew where he was.

He only had one drachma, one chance to make a call. He had to make it count.

It didn’t take Michael long to come up with a plan, if it could even be called that. Step one, find out where he was. Step two, find a rainbow and make the call.

Don’t get caught in the process.

He’d lingered too long. He knew he had. With a groan he forced his body upright again, biting back a scream as his right leg buckled and almost collapsed, and shoved himself away from the wall. The movement pushed him into a run, one leg in front of the other with no pause to think, for all that they both threatened to crumple beneath him as he staggered forwards, each step sending a bolt of pain up his right leg.

Michael stumbled his way towards the busier street. He didn’t know if it was a major enough street to have helpful signs like “welcome to”, but it was the best shot he had at finding where he was.

Several times, he almost fell, barely catching himself on the building walls, but he made it to the larger street without picking up any more injuries.

It didn’t have a “welcome to” sign, or any other defining characteristics that might have at least given Michael a clue. Cars drove past him without a second look, not that Michael intended on getting in one, anyway. It would be infinitely easier than walking, but the freak had a lot of influence. Michael couldn’t trust anyone not to be part of his many, many circles. Until he made contact with Chiron, he couldn’t risk talking to anyone.

The street ran east and west, as straight as an arrow, and Michael barely even had to think before he was turning east, glancing up at the sun as he did so and sending yet another silent and rushed prayer his father’s way.

Apollo had guided him to safety before. Why couldn’t he do it again?

Passing mortals paid him no more attention on the major street than they had on the side street. Michael still didn't know if that was due to the Mist concealing the various injuries and blood dripping from hastily wrapped (and in some cases unwrapped) wounds, or if they really just didn't care in this place. Not that the why actually mattered; at least no-one was stopping him.

It was only going to be a matter of time before they found him again, and Michael needed to have figured out where he was and called Chiron by then. If they caught up to him here, he didn’t stand a chance.

The thought spurred his protesting body on, legs screaming and lungs hauling in as much air as they could stand. There had to be some sign, somewhere, to tell him where he was. A café name, roadsigns, billboards. Something.

He reached an intersection just as the lights turned green for the cars. A glance behind him didn’t show any obvious pursuit but Michael couldn’t risk it. He dashed forwards, dodging honking vehicles, and felt his leg buckle halfway across, but he snarled and pushed on, refusing to let it surrender to the break just yet.

Not until he was safe.

It was probably more luck than skill that got him across without being knocked down by a irate driver, but Michael didn't pause when his feet met the sidewalk once more, leaving the cacophony of chaos behind him as he kept running. His lungs were starting to burn; no demigod endurance could keep going forever, and Michael had been fleeing for days, weeks, he didn’t even know. He’d long since lost track of time.

There were more than a few near-misses with crashing into mortals on the street, his legs not quite up for intense manoeuvrability and reliant mostly on other people getting out of his way, and more side streets crossed - more than one involving a game of chicken with cars and the accompanying soundtrack of blaring horns and swearing drivers - but Michael didn’t let himself stop. Couldn’t stop.

Where was he?

His eyes scanned the streets as he ran, desperately searching for any sign, a familiar name to latch onto, but his dyslexia kept jumbling anything that might be helpful and he didn’t dare stop long enough to decipher it. He couldn’t hear any pursuit yet, but he knew with a certainty deep inside his bones that they’d come. If he hadn’t lost them in there, he wouldn’t lose them here.

Another intersection - complete with more cars and horns, and Michael almost collapsing in the middle of the asphalt as his leg buckled alarmingly - and the buildings sharply receded on the other side of the street, leaving a large lawned area with a broad paved path leading directly up to an impressive building. People milled about, sitting on the edge of the cacti-infested planter that ran up the middle of the path, signifying it as a public place, and Michael made a snap decision.

It was the first thing he’d seen that seemed like it could tell him where he was, and further down the street he could see a fountain.

He clutched the drachma tighter, certain it had to be leaving jagged red marks in his skin, and ploughed across the street, his run disintegrating into more of a rapid limp as he dragged himself towards the building. There were words emblazoned above what was clearly the entrance, and flapping banners covering the outside of the second floor windows, more images than words.

When he drew to a stop outside, chest tight with pain and almost all his weight on his left leg, which trembled frantically as it desperately tried to bear it, he blinked at the large words, willing them to arrange themselves in a way that made sense.

AZRINOA STATE MEUSUM

No, that wasn’t right.

Arizona State Museum.

Arizona.

Michael had never been to Arizona before in his life, but the state name triggered an immediate memory of crackling spears and loud, abrasive words.

Clarisse.

He’d had a lot of time to think, while the freak had him. Time to get angry at the daughter of Ares, time to shout and curse her existence, to blame her for the battle going wrong, for the hellhounds tearing Nathan apart, for the shockwave that had sent half his siblings cascading off the shaking bridge-

But then time to go hollow, time to remember that the Ares cabin was never going to be stationed with the Apollo cabin, that the deaths wouldn’t have been prevented.

Time to realise that it wasn’t Clarisse’s fault. That in the grand scheme of things, their argument had been petty and inconsequential.

Gods, but the Fates had a sense of humour, dropping him in Arizona, of all places.

Michael didn’t know which city held the state museum, if it was Phoenix or Tucson or somewhere else entirely, but… Clarisse would know.

Clarisse, for all that they’d never got on, had always been a strong leader. She might hate him, might have told him she hoped he died (and he almost had and that still stung, a little), but she was prepared for trouble and Michael had never seen her without at least two visible weapons on her.

Hades, he’d been on the receiving end of them a few times, when their arguments got too heated. Lee, and Emily before him, had always told him off whenever he landed in the infirmary again after a fight with her.

The drachma felt heavy in his hand.

Michael turned away from the museum and pushed his body to start moving again, a walk that turned into a jog until he dragged it into a full run again, leg screaming in agony but something almost like hope starting to bloom in his chest.

He just had to reach the fountain. The Arizonian sun blazed down above him; there had to be a rainbow shimmering in the droplets somewhere, and then he could call for help.

The back of his neck prickled as his staggered run took him out of the museum grounds and back onto the street, and the blooming hope stuttered before it had much of a chance to grow. He threw a glance down the street, back the way he’d come, even as he pressed forwards towards the fountain, glistening in the sunlight. No sign of pursuit, but that didn’t mean anything. Michael hadn’t survived this long by not listening to his instincts, and the sudden tenseness at the top of his spine told him he had to run.

So he ran.

Jagged agony shot up his broken leg as he pushed it further, stumbling but refusing to fall even when tears of pain started leaking from the corners of his eyes and his breathing took on a whine of desperation that rang in his ears.

He almost crashed into the edge of the fountain, hands reaching forwards to brace himself against it and absorbing the impact. The drachma in his hand dug in deeply enough Michael wouldn’t have been surprised if it had drawn blood, but he’d take that a thousand times over dropping it now, so close to being able to use it.

Exposed and with no cover, if he lost it and the cry for help it afforded him now, it would be over for him.

Dashing away the tears of pain with the back of his hand, and wincing as the salt stung open scratches, he glared at the fountain, desperately searching for the glimmer of colour that had to be there, somewhere. The sun and the falling droplets of water were present, he just had to find -

There.

It was halfway around the fountain from where he’d stopped, and he clawed his way around the edge, leaning heavily on the white stone rim and letting his right leg abandon his weight. His left leg, and the arm he was bracing himself with, both trembled angrily, but Michael wouldn’t fall here. Not now.

The rainbow shimmered in front of him and he forced his fingers to unfurl from their death grip around the drachma, streaked red with angry lines where the coin had imprinted almost every detail onto his palm.

“Oh, Goddess, accept my offering,” he mumbled. His voice rasped in his ears after however many days it had been since he’d last had a reason to talk out loud, hoarse in his throat - maybe he should’ve taken a drink from the fountain first, but there wasn’t time for that - but hopefully the words came out clearly enough for Iris to understand. He tossed the drachma into the rainbow with a shaking hand.

“Clarisse La Rue.”

Fuck.

He hadn’t planned on calling Clarisse.

Even if he was in her home state, Chiron would know where things like the state museum was, and crucially, the centaur had never told him to die .

But the drachma was gone, the only one he had, and he’d said the name now. He dashed more tears - pain, frustration - away and stared at the rainbow, waiting for the call to go through and knowing he wasn’t at all prepared to talk to Clarisse, but that he had to.

Nothing happened.

The rainbow shimmered, glistening in a way that didn’t quite seem natural, and Michael stared at it in horror.

“C’mon,” he muttered, glancing back the way he’d come. Still no signs of pursuit, but his instincts were screaming at him. “C’mon, connect, why aren’t you fucking connecting?”

The rainbow pulsed lightly, as though it was still waiting for something, and realisation crashed over Michael.

“Fuck.” He hadn’t said where Clarisse was - where was Clarisse? He didn’t know, didn’t know if she was even still alive, let alone if she was at camp or if she’d left camp now, or... “Fuck. I don’t- Where the fuck is Clarisse? Iris- fuck- Lady Iris, please.” His hand clenched into a fist as he leaned forwards and rested almost the entirety of his weight on the rim of the fountain. Breathing was supposed to be easier than that but the air kept getting caught in his throat and distantly he realised he was panicking, sensing his hope slipping away from one slip of the tongue. “Clarisse La Rue at… fuck, I don’t know. Camp Half-Blood?”

His right leg buckled and he clamped his mouth shut against the cry of pain as broken bone fragments slipped against each other. More tears welled in the corners of his eyes and he turned his head, wiping them away frantically in the dirty remains of the fabric on his shoulder.

When he looked back up, Clarisse La Rue was staring at him out of the centre of the rainbow, eyes wide in shock.

She looked older than when he’d last seen her, hair semi-neatly chopped around her cheeks and small scars he didn’t remember peppering across her face. She was bigger, too, always broad-shouldered but now easily twice his width, and Michael was pretty sure she was even taller.

“Clarisse,” he rasped, too relieved to even care how frantic he sounded. “Help. ”

“Michael?” she asked. “You’re dead.”

The bark of laughter that erupted from his mouth wasn’t humorous in the slightest. Fuck, camp thought him dead? It made sense, explained why no-one had ever come looking, but-

Fuck.

“Not fucking quite,” he replied hoarsely. The back of his neck tingled again and he glanced back the way he’d come. Still no sign, but that didn’t make him feel any safer. “Not yet.”

Her brown eyes sharpened, narrowing from wide-eyed shock to the assessing daughter of Ares Michael had seen so many times before. “What happened to you?” she demanded. “And why are you calling me?”

“Fuck if I know.” He looked around again, and caught sight of movement in the distance. Movement that didn’t seem natural for mortals going about their day. “Fuck. I’m in Arizona, don’t know where the fuck except the state museum’s just down this road and if I don’t find somewhere safe to hide - or at least some fucking weapons to fight back with - now I’m fucking dead for real.”

“I know where you are,” Clarisse said. Michael saw her glance away from the IM for a moment, then nod firmly, a familiar stubbornness settling into her expression. “There’s a big building behind the fountain.” He looked up and nodded. “That’s the state university. Get around the back of it then follow the boulevard east through the campus. Once you’re out of the campus, keep following the street east for six blocks, then go left, then get to the park on the right. There’s an unused building in the far corner; mortals think it’s locked but it’s not. It’s one of my safehouses. You’ll find weapons there.”

Through the college campus and then another six blocks. Michael’s leg throbbed in protest but he set his jaw and nodded. He could do that.

He had to do that.

“Thanks,” he rasped, glancing back again. The shapes were clearer, bulky individuals that clearly hadn’t figured out exactly where he was yet but were searching. “Fuck. Gotta go.”

He slashed an arm through the rainbow, cutting off Clarisse’s “Mi-”, and pushed himself away from the fountain.

Time to run.

Michael knew that his leg shouldn’t be able to keep moving, let alone running. A mortal could never have managed it, and he was pretty certain most demigods couldn’t, either. Being the son of Apollo had its perks, but that didn’t stop it sending vicious stabs of pain up through his body with every step, reminding him loudly and furiously that son of Apollo or not, he wasn’t doing it any favours and sooner or later it was going to run out of endurance.

Oblivious college students didn’t even seem to blink as he ran past them, adrenaline flooding his body and pushing him further, further, faster. Fear of being caught and the hope of safety ahead of him worked in tandem to urge him on, slamming away the pain with extreme prejudice and forcing his legs, both the broken one and the merely exhausted one, to keep going, one foot in front of the other and jarring with every step. The campus stretched out before him, seeming impossibly long, and in the back of his mind a small voice despaired that he’d never make it.

He told the voice to shut the fuck up and kept going.

The sun beat down as he ran, sweat joining with blood to leave a trail behind that he was painfully aware of but could do nothing about. All he could do was hope that he had enough of a headstart to outrun them to Clarisse’s safehouse. And that Clarisse would think to tell Chiron, because fuck, he’d forgotten to tell her to.

The first sounds of active pursuit reached his ears as he passed a set of tennis courts near the end of the campus, lungs burning, chest heaving, legs screaming, and he glanced over his shoulder to see students being pushed out of the way by larger, armed and dangerous, figures.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

His body had nothing left to give but Michael wasn’t going to let it surrender. Not now, not when he finally had a chance to get away. He ignored the voice in his head that said that a safehouse wasn’t much good if they saw him go into it, and that he didn’t stand a chance in combat even if he did get his hands on weapons, because it didn’t matter how true it was, it was still all he had.

He accelerated again, finding speed he didn’t know he was capable of even with two intact legs and not on the cusp of exhaustion, and bolted across the last few yards of the campus, hurtling across the street without stopping and forcing cars to swerve to avoid hitting him, and kept going.

One block.

Behind him, more car horns sounded and drivers started shouting. Something sounded like it hit something hard.

Two blocks.

Something went crunch and the shouting abruptly stopped.

Three blocks.

Michael’s lungs were on fire. He couldn’t even feel his legs any more, which definitely wasn’t a good thing.

Four blocks.

Fresh shouting started up, low and guttural and undoubtedly aimed at him.

Five blocks.

His lungs transitioned from on fire to non-operational, each breath a constricting choke as he ploughed on.

Six blocks.

Michael skidded around the corner, crossing the intersection to more irate cars and almost toppled over at the change of direction. He caught himself on a wall and all but bounced off of it, lurching down the sidewalk and knowing it was too much to ask that his pursuers hadn’t seen him make the turn but part of him begging whichever gods might be listening that they’d missed it anyway.

The park on the right, Clarisse had said, and Michael almost stumbled over his own feet as he caught sight of greenery after a moment of desperate running.

A javelin sailed past him, missing only because his leg buckled and listed him to one side for a heartbeat, and Michael’s stomach leapt up into his throat. Not now, not now he was so close.

He threw himself into the greenery the moment it opened up, using the shrubbery for what little cover it could give him, but it was barely moments before he heard the leaves get brushed aside behind him. Guttural cursing in a language Michael didn’t know but had got used to hearing was far too close as he frantically scanned the far side of the park for the building Clarisse had mentioned.

Where was it where was it where was it where the fuck was it-

There!

On the far side of the park, sheltered by trees on multiple sides, was a building that looked old and rundown. Chains and padlocks wrapped around the door, but as Michael focused on it, they shimmered and fell away.

He hadn’t known Clarisse could manipulate the Mist that well, but he wasn’t going to complain.

He didn’t have time to complain.

There was still half the park to cross and he wasn’t going to make it unless he found another burst of speed from Hades-knew-where. He choked on more air, willing his legs to go faster, but he still couldn’t feel them, not even the pain from the break, and he definitely wasn’t speeding up.

If anything, he was slowing down.

Fuck no. He wasn’t going to get caught, not here. Not now . He leaned forwards, desperate for just a little more speed, and felt something snag his feet.

He landed on his front hard enough to see stars, every part of his body compressing in a way that made him feel sick, or perhaps that was the knowledge that he’d never get up and away in time. It didn’t stop him trying, pushing himself upright on arms that were shaking almost too much to bear his weight, one shoulder screaming as it reminded him it probably wasn’t in its fucking socket, determined to fucking crawl if he had to.

Electricity crackled.

“Back off!” a female voice roared , footsteps running towards him from where he’d been trying to get to. Michael’s first thought was that he must have hit his head when he fell, because that was Clarisse’s voice.

He dragged his head up just in time to see a figure jump over him, barely an instant before there was the clash of weapons behind him.

Rolling over was marginally easier than trying to stand up. It brought with it a reprise of pain from his broken leg that jolted back into awareness so quickly he barely choked down a cry, but more importantly gave him a front row seat to Clarisse La Rue in nothing but jeans and a t-shirt wielding a familiar electric spear with a vengeance against the freak’s employees as they found themselves on the back foot, clearly not expecting to face anything more than a desperate, injured demigod they’d already run into the ground.

A skilled daughter of Ares with a weapon gifted to her by the god of war himself was not a desperate, injured and run into the ground demigod.

Michael had seen the Germani fight before, when the freak wanted entertainment. They were skilled and powerful, far more so than most demigods - but Clarisse was not most demigods, and had surprise on her side.

He pulled himself backwards with trembling hands, away from the fight, until his back hit something solid. A panicked glance upwards revealed that it was the trunk of a tree - not a rogue Germani trying to get around Clarisse - and Michael reached up with his less-bad arm for a low-hanging branch to haul himself to his feet with, much to the protest of his entire body.

If one of the Germani did get around Clarisse, he refused to be vulnerable on the ground. He could still run to the safehouse if he had to, leg be damned .

For the moment, he let the trunk of the tree take most of his weight, keeping his right leg off the ground and gripping the trunk with white knuckles to stay upright while he watched Clarisse fight.

She’d always been an impressive fighter, but the demigod in front of him here was a whole different class to the one he remembered from before Manhattan. The IM hadn’t deceived him - she was slightly taller and muscular since he’d last seen her - but there was a confidence to her that felt different, almost more natural.

Or maybe he was just so relieved to be saved that his mind had entered delirium. That was certainly possible.

Whatever it was, Clarisse clearly needed no help in finishing up the fight, her spear whirling around and dispatching the startled Germani in a typically child-of-Ares display of aggression, until the last one disintegrated into dust.

Michael was not ready for Clarisse to turn and face him, towering over him the way she always had done and racking him over with narrowed brown eyes. There were some bleeding scratches on her front, and a rather more considerably bleeding gash on one arm, but she didn’t seem to notice them as she stepped towards him. Instinctively, Michael straightened, his weight automatically transferring back to both his legs, and provoking another blinding protest from the right one.

“Clarisse,” he croaked.

“What happened to you?” she demanded, voice sharp and unyielding. “You died in Manhattan.”

“The fuck I did,” he protested. “Some fucking emperor-god-wannabe fished me out the river and dragged me off.” At least, that was what he’d gathered after the fact. He didn’t remember anything between the bridge collapsing and waking up in the freak’s floating villa, which had taken far too fucking long to escape from.

He didn’t expect Clarisse to believe him, though. It sounded fantastical, he knew it did, wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t lived it himself. But it was the truth.

To his surprise, Clarisse’s gaze sharpened. “Emperor-god?” she demanded, and there was something in her tone that made Michael’s default defensive snap back falter briefly, because it sounded like she did, somehow, believe him.

Still, “that’s what I fucking said,” he retorted after a few seconds, the familiarity of arguing an unlooked-for comfort washing over him even though he didn’t want to argue, still needed Clarisse’s help badly. “Freak said he was one of the Roman bastards despite the fact they’ve been dead for fucking millennia. Called himself Caligula.”

The soft shit that slipped out of Clarisse’s mouth seemed like a reflex, and Michael blinked as she set the butt of her spear on the ground. “Let’s move,” she said, glancing around. “We can talk once we’re somewhere more secure.”

That, Michael agreed with, and he took a step away from the trunk.

His body did not agree.

Enough, said his leg, at the same time adrenaline drained away, leaving his head lighter than air.

He crumpled.

“Shit!” Large, warm hands caught his shoulders in a grip of iron. “Michael!”

Michael snarled weakly and tried to get his leg under him again. “I’m fine,” he insisted, knowing it was a lie. He wasn’t fine, but he hadn’t hit his limit yet - he refused. He dragged his head up to meet Clarisse’s searching gaze.

She snorted. “Pull the other one, Yew.”

To his surprise, she sank down in front of him, and by the time his brain realised what was going on he was slumped over her shoulders, pinned in place by an arm around his leg and hand clamped around his wrist.

“The fuck, La Rue?” he yelped as she grabbed her spear with the hand not holding him in place and straightened up. “I can fucking walk!”

“This is faster,” she said. “Instead of slowing us down, keep an eye out for more of Caligula’s people.”

Michael tried to be offended, but as she broke into an even jog, he had to at least privately concede the point. The movement jostled his broken leg, thankfully not the one she was using to hold him in place, and he fought back whimpers, but after so long running under his own steam, it was a relief not to have to, anymore.

Even though it meant a fireman carry from Clarisse.

It was easier to let his head hang than try to hold it up, and his matted hair made a curtain that was difficult to see through, but Michael had no desire to be ambushed by more Germani - more of Caligula’s people, and he was starting to wonder how much Clarisse knew about the freak, how she knew anything about him in the first place. He squinted past his hair, watching the park behind them as Clarisse jogged forwards, and then the street as she passed the safehouse without pausing.

“Where’re we going?” he asked, watching the building get smaller for a moment before flicking his attention back to the street.

“My apartment,” Clarisse said shortly. “It’s more secure than that.”

Clarisse��s apartment? “Your mom’s place?”

She snorted. “No. My apartment. You just ran through my college campus.”

It hadn’t occurred to Michael that Clarisse would be in college, now. Fuck, they were the same age; if she was in college, then if it wasn’t for the freak, he probably would be, too - if he’d ever decided what the Hades he wanted to do.

“Huh,” was the only noise he could summon in response, followed by another muffled whine as his broken leg jarred again. Fuck, he missed the pain numbing properties of adrenaline. Clarisse’s grip on his wrist shifted, and he realised that she’d heard it. She didn’t mention it, though, just kept up with the jog as though he didn’t weigh a thing.

In his current state, he probably didn’t as far as she was concerned.

Wherever Clarisse lived, it felt a long way away. Maybe it was because she wasn’t running in a flat-out sprint, but the journey seemed to take forever. More than once, Michael found his eyes starting to slide shut, exhaustion fighting for dominance, and forced them open again, unwilling to risk missing a threat.

Nothing attacked them. Michael could feel the tension in Clarisse’s shoulders rising the longer they went without being attacked, but she drew to a halt outside an apartment building unchallenged.

“Still awake?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he muttered.

“Good.” She turned around, looking back the way they’d come for herself and giving Michael a clearer view of the building, complete with the flight of stairs they were no doubt about to go up. Seemingly satisfied that he hadn’t missed anything, she then turned back and continued towards what was clearly her apartment door.

Michael’s leg did not approve of the stairs. Clarisse went slower than he expected, the rise and fall of her body minimal, but still his leg complained and more than one hiss forced its way past gritted teeth on the ascent. Her grip on his wrist tightened, but she still said nothing. Michael appreciated it.

Eventually, they came to a stop outside a plain door, indistinguishable from the rest of the apartment doors. Michael wasn’t sure how Clarisse was planning on opening it with her spear in one hand while the other kept hold of him, but he wasn’t expecting for her to call, “it’s him.”

The door was yanked open so fast, Michael half-expected it to fly off the hinges.

“Michael?”

He forced his head to raise, his hair falling mostly out of his face so that he could see over Clarisse’s shoulder.

“Chris,” he rasped, not liking the way the son of Hermes was looking at him in horror. “Take it you two are still together, then?”

“Yeah,” Clarisse confirmed as she walked past her boyfriend, who shut the door behind them. At the click of the catch falling into place, Michael let his head sag again. “Down you go.”

Michael didn’t manage to brace himself before spilling out of Clarisse’s grip, but he didn’t have to as he was gently laid on a throw-covered couch, his limbs limp and boneless as he sank into the fabric.

It felt heavenly.

“Gods,” Chris breathed, kneeling on the floor next to him, dark eyes surveying him from head to toe. Michael heard the quiet click of a catch opening and his eyes flitted to look at the floor, where Chris had a large plastic box cracked open on the rug. “Eat.” A small square of ambrosia was held up in front of him. Michael forced a shaking hand to take it from him and slipped it into his mouth, instantly feeling the relief that came from eating the godly food.

Hades, how long had it been since he’d last had ambrosia? The freak certainly hadn’t ever given him any.

He let his arm fall heavily back onto the couch as he savoured the taste.

“Let me treat your wounds,” Chris insisted. He was already pulling on gloves, and Michael eyed him in surprise. The son of Hermes huffed. “I know I’m not an Apollo kid, but my dad is still a patron of medicine, even if he’s not strictly a god of it. I might not be able to instantly heal you but I can make sure you don’t die of sepsis.”

It wasn’t like Michael could do much more for his own wounds than he had already; he healed fast but not instantly.

“Fine,” he agreed, and Chris broke into a relieved look. Clarisse shifted her weight.

“I’ll make sure the perimeter is secure,” she said, grabbing a small vial of nectar and taking a sip from it.

“Could you grab Michael something clean to wear before you go?” Chris asked her. Michael felt him gently take hold of one of his arms, then hissed as he gently dabbed at the exposed cut with antiseptic. “These clothes are filthy.”

“Fuck you,” Michael muttered, well aware that he was right. They weren’t clothes he was attached to - the freak had got rid of his clothes after Manhattan and replaced them with some sort of sailor’s outfit, which Michael had had no hesitation about tearing up for makeshift bandages.

He was still furious about the loss of his camp necklace, though.

Clarisse headed further into the apartment without another word as Chris wiped down the skin around the gash before peeling away one of Michael’s makeshift bandaging attempts and getting to work treating the wound underneath it.

“You know I’m right,” Chris replied. “Those rags need cutting off, anyway.”

Michael bristled. “I can-”

“I know a broken leg when I see one,” Chris overrode him. “I don’t even want to think about how much damage you’ve done to it running around - or how the Hades you managed to run around on that - but it won’t thank you for moving it again.”

Clarisse returned before Michael could come up with a retort, dropping a bundle of fabric over the back of the couch. “I’m securing the perimeter now,” she said.

“Be careful,” Chris replied, and Michael watched as she stalked out the front door, shutting it with a loud click behind her. “Okay, let’s get these rags out of the way.”

Chris’ hands were gentle as they tended to each cut, scrape, gash or worse. It wasn’t the same as one of his siblings, but it was enough to make Michael feel halfway human again, if completely helpless.

“I’d run you a bath now but I think you’d fall asleep in it,” the son of Hermes told him as he probed gently at the probably-dislocated shoulder. As much as Michael hated to admit it, the older demigod was once again right; he was well aware of the exhaustion doggedly gnawing away at him now that the adrenaline had faded away. “I’ll do that later.” He frowned at Michael’s shoulder. “This, on the other hand, I’ve got to deal with now.”

One good thing about the encroaching exhaustion was that Michael’s muscles couldn’t tense up too much, even if they wanted to. He grit his teeth as Chris carefully manipulated his arm into extending, before slowly starting to rotate it. The earlier ambrosia was not enough to completely muffle the sensation of the joint grinding back into its socket; some whimpers slipped out past his clenched jaw. Like Clarisse earlier, Chris had the tact to not mention it.

Even worse than the dislocated shoulder, predictably, was the broken leg. That was by far the worst part of the treatment as Chris gently poked and prodded at it before resetting the bone. The ambrosia was no more effective as a painkiller for his leg than it had been for his shoulder, and Michael couldn’t help a short, high-pitched shout as it shifted back into position - thankfully also passing unacknowledged by the son of Hermes.

“No walking on it,” Chris said firmly as he fitted a splint to keep it in place. Michael grumbled a string of curses under his breath as it was secured. “It - and the rest of you - needs rest.” It was obvious that he wanted to ask about what had happened to Michael, much in the same way Clarisse had, but to Michael’s relief, he wasn’t actually broaching the subject.

Then again, Chris knew a lot about traumatic experiences.

Once all his wounds were treated properly, Michael pulled on the spare clothes Clarisse had dug out for him, begrudgingly accepting Chris’ help. Unsurprisingly, they were all far too big for him - Clarisse was easily twice his size, now, and Chris might have been rather lither than his girlfriend, but he was far taller than Michael. The only advantage was that it meant they were easy to pull on over the various bandages and even leg splint, which didn’t negate Michael feeling like he was swimming in fabric.

“I’ll get you something that fits better soon,” Chris apologised as Michael flaked back down again, finding the couch far more comfortable than it had any right to be.

“Whatever,” he muttered.

The apartment door opened and Clarisse strode back in, bolting it behind her and propping her spear up beside it. “Secure,” she reported, heading for them. “Done with the first aid?”

“Done,” Chris confirmed. “He won’t be walking on that leg any time soon, but otherwise it’s mostly exhaustion.”

Clarisse sat down on the rug; with Michael laying down on the couch, their heads were at similar heights. “So what happened after Caligula grabbed you?” she demanded. Chris’ sharp intake of breath at the name told Michael that they definitely knew something about the freak. “That was nearly two years ago.”

Michael grimaced.

“Couldn’t get out,” he admitted, glossing over the gloating, the leering Germani and the self-important big-eared pandos, to say nothing of the fucking horse and the freak himself. They’d found his attempts amusing. The freak had even dared him to get out, promising him that he couldn’t.

The freak had said a lot of things, and Michael still couldn’t shake the shivers at the promise that he would be the new sun god. It was delusional - it had to be, Apollo was the sun god and wouldn’t be usurped by some fucking wannabe - but the freak had always sounded deadly serious when he’d said it, like he fully believed he would . He’d said Michael would help him, too.

Michael’s attempts to escape had always got more frantic whenever he heard that gloat.

He didn’t say any of that, didn’t think he could if he tried. Neither Clarisse or Chris pressed him for details.

“Had a fucking boat villa. Never let the thing near land.” He’d managed to get on one of the boarding boats, once. Mortal security guards had spotted him and dragged him back, citing some nonsense about the boss’ son not being allowed to leave. “Took for fucking ever to get off.”

Eventually, one day, the guards had been distracted by something. Michael still didn’t know what, but it had been enough for him to finally slip past them, onto land for the first time in eighteen fucking months, and run for it.

It almost hadn’t been enough, he’d almost been caught, but a door he’d run through had ended up in tunnels and more tunnels and more and more and more fucking tunnels with monsters with claws and teeth and other appendages they shouldn’t be allowed to fucking have that wanted a piece of demigod flesh and-

“Michael, breathe.”

A hand rested on the couch, not touching him but enough to catch his attention. His eyes snapped to it, then followed the arm up to a shoulder and up again until he was looking at Chris’ face. The older demigod’s brow was furrowed in concern, and Michael realised he was breathing too fast, air not actually reaching his lungs.

Fuck.

Michael closed his eyes, only to be assaulted by memories of being tracked, hunted, and snapped them open again, focusing instead on Chris’ face as he tried to wrench his breathing under control.

“Don’t push yourself,” Chris told him gently as air started to reach his lungs again. “It’s okay if you can’t talk about it.” Michael glanced at Clarisse, still sat on the rug behind her boyfriend but frowning, face all twisted up.

“No,” he said, hating how thin his voice sounded. “I- fuck.” If it was anyone else, he’d take the invitation to stop talking, because they wouldn’t understand, wouldn’t get it. But these two…

“Fucking Labyrinth.”

Chris’ face paled, and Clarisse moved, putting her hand on the son of Hermes’ shoulder. Her knuckles were white.

“It got me away,” Michael admitted, because it had; without its twists and turns and traps absolutely everywhere the freak’s men would have caught up to him within a day.

He didn’t know how many days he’d been running through the fucking thing before it finally spat him out in Arizona.

“But- fuck .” He’d never been in the fucking thing before, but he’d seen what it had done to Chris, how pale and shaken Annabeth had been when she re-emerged alone after her quest. Had seen the monsters spill out of it into camp, had seen Lee’s head smashed open-

The fucking thing was supposed to be destroyed. Why was it back?

He could’ve done without experiencing the inside of the fucking living nightmare for himself.

“You made it,” Chris told him, voice shaky but assuring. “You made it out, Michael.”

“You’re safe,” Clarisse added, tone firm and leaving no room for debate. Michael looked at her, remembering too many arguments and disagreements and threats from the daughter of Ares but seeing only pure sincerity and stubbornness there now. “Those shitheads won’t get you, and you’re never going in there again.”

Michael swallowed around a lump in his throat. “Yeah,” he agreed, voice shaking just as much as Chris’. “Yeah.”

He was out. He was safe.

The knowledge settled over him, heavy and warm as it finally sank in, and with it came a looming darkness his battered, aching and exhausted body finally stopped fighting and instead welcomed with open arms.

potentially tbc...

#riordanverse #riordanverse fanfic #percy jackson and the olympians #percy jackson fanfiction #trials of apollo #trials of apollo fanfiction #michael yew #clarisse la rue #chris rodriguez #toa caligula #tsari writes fanfiction #stereden #podfic #podfic of my fic

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twoidiotwriters1 · 2 years ago

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Daughter of Olympus (Leo Valdez xFem!Oc)

A/N: I'll see y'all in a few weeks! -Danny Words: 1,944 Series' Masterlist Previous Chapter /Book II Listen to: 'The Exit' -by Conan Gray

XLIII: It Got Too Fluffy, I Had to Do Something About That

Monsters are vanishing left and right. After Typhon vanishes away, Lady Artemis and Apollo help us strike down a couple more creatures, not to mention Tyson and his buddies are also stomping enemies like they're made of clay.

A blast of golden light comes from the sky, and we all stop to stare. The gods around us, all except Hades, go up to Olympus at once.

"Did we win?" Jake Mason asks behind me.

I realize we've run out of monsters, and everything is deadly quiet except for a few mortals' panicky screams in the distance.

"It's done," Hades announces. "Olympus stands."

I drop Almighty out of pure shock. "My brother..."

The top of the Empire State turns blue all of a sudden, there is only one kid insane enough to ask Zeus to do that.

"She said what?"

"It doesn't matter."

"It matters 'cause she's supposed to be your second in command and she's disrespecting you!" Leo insists heatedly.

"It doesn't matter," Ara repeats calmly. "This was just an argument, we'll make peace once I'm back."

"But..." he almost asks 'What if we don't come back?', but asking that is never an option, so he changes the subject. "I don't want you to leave this place sad, this is your home."

"My home is with my parents and Percy," Ara corrects him stubbornly, then pokes his cheek. "And you. As long as I'm with you, I'll be okay."

Leo softens at her words. "Alright. Let's go rescue your brother from Camp Stuck-up."

"I heard that!" Jason steps onto the deck with his backpack over one shoulder. "Don't go saying that once we get there, Leo. Be nice."

"I'm nice!" Leo puts his arm around Ara's shoulders. "But my girl needs me on her side right now."

Ara looks over the ship's rail, they're on top of the cliff where Bunker Nine is hidden, and she's meditating on whether it's a good idea to look for Lily or not. Their arguments wash away as soon as something bigger happens, so she's not too worried.

The next hour is a blur, while Hades helps us rebuild the city, Mrs O'Leary walks past us with Chiron on her back.

"Ara Jackson," he says my name as if he were talking to a badly behaved pet. "In the future, review your plans with me before you risk your life in such a reckless manner."

Mrs O'Leary shakes off a bit of dirt, making him wince.

"We can talk later, go to camp," I say gently.

Hades walks up to us after Chiron leaves.

"Well, Jackson," he eyes my appearance. "Now is your time to come through with your part of our agreement."

I stare at him, not sure of what to say. He glances at Nico and the boy steps forward, looking anxious. "We should check on the others," he suggests.

"You're a good warrior, Ghost King," I nudge his arm as we walk together. "If I hadn't promised Lily the position, you'd be a good second in command."

He makes a face as if he can't think of anything more horrid than following my orders forever.

When we enter Olympus, people cheer for us. Percy goes out of his way to find me and holds me, after getting my mom's blessing, my forehead can reach his shoulder perfectly.

"Pretending to be Achilles? Are you kidding me?! That was insane!"

"And I haven't pulled my craziest stunt yet," I mumble against his shoulder.

Percy moves away and frowns. "What do you mean?"

"Ready to go?" Piper and Coach Hedge arrive with all of their stuff.

Ara holds tightly onto the railing. Lily didn't come to say goodbye, she left Ara's cloak inside Ara's cabin in the ship, along with her tattered T-Rex. That's how she operates, Ara knows that.

She pulls out the dagger her friend forgot in her room that same afternoon, Ara brought it as a good luck charm.

"Annabeth's ready?" The girl eyes the blade, deep in thought.

"Yes," Leo hums, moving to the control board.

"Let's go, then," Ara sighs, trying not to sound worried.

Lily gets called by Hades right after Annabeth becomes the architect of Olympus, he tells her there are too many corners that he doesn't want to leave unattended in the Underworld, and many souls to recover after this war, so Lily must work with Daedalus to make the Underworld safer and Tartarus harder to reach.

Percy could've become a god if he wanted to, but he turned it down. In exchange, he asks for the Gods to care for their children, to treat every camper with respect, no matter who their parents are. I think that's sweet.

"Arae Jackson."

It isn't Hades the one who calls me forward, it's Ares. I can't help the way I glance back at my friends in confusion. The god snorts. "Why are you surprised? You've been calling to me for a whole year."

I frown. "Lord?"

"We've all been listening, like you asked," Mr D says. "Isn't this what you wanted?"

What surprises me the most is that instead of passing out, I feel braver. Blame it on the Aphrodite in me, but I thrive on the spotlight.

"Yes," I look at Zeus. "With your permission, then... I'd like to plead my case." The god's face is impossible to read, but I carry on anyway. "I offer myself as your next child of Olympus."

Demeter scoffs. "Why would we choose you?"

"Cause I want it," I reply cynically.

"Young lady," Poseidon speaks. "We haven't seen that kind of hero in centuries. What makes you think you're up to the task?"

"Well, what makes you think I'm not?"

"You're an Aphrodite!" Ares laughs. When my mother glares at him, he clears his throat. "I mean, it doesn't seem like it would be the calling for someone of your kind."

"I've fought plenty," I continue. "I've learned a lot and I want to keep our world safe. I also have this..."

I show them Almighty. Hephaestus shifts on his chair uncomfortably and looks away; Zeus frowns, but next to him, Hera gets excited with the revelation.

"Pantodynamos!" She beams.

"How do we know she didn't steal it?"

"I saw her in action," Hades says. "This half-blood tricked a whole army into believing she was Achilles, our last son of Olympus, and they believed it because she did a good job."

"A child of Olympus must be familiar with their armies," Athena nods in agreement. "And she's spent years learning all the crafts, has she not? She can fight, build, and knows how to lead."

"I say we give her a try," Mr D shrugs. "We can strike her out of existence if she's lousy."

"She has my full support," Hades announces. "And my vote."

Zeus glares at his brother, but then Hera speaks. "Mine too."

"Me three," Mr. D hums, he's already lost interest and seems eager to leave the throne room.

"I gave her my blessing," my mother smiles. "She has my vote and my trust."

"Mine too," Hephaestus grumbles. "That was a neat trick you pulled with my son's creations, I'd like to see more of that."

"I vote in favor," Artemis eyes me with interest. "Would've made a fine hunter, but if this is her choice..."

"I never forget a fan," Apollo winks at me. "She's got my approval."

"Well, I helped her kill a Hyperborean..." Ares ponders. "So I guess I vote in favor too."

"She has my vote," says Hermes.

"Fine," Poseidon gives in, briefly glancing at Percy. "She shall have her chance."

Percy steps forward but Annabeth stops him. It catches my eye and I look back at them, my brother doesn't understand what being a child of Olympus ensues, but he's visibly worried. Annabeth's staring at me like she can't believe this is happening, and Thalia's shaking her head, knowing the deed is done.

Lily keeps her arms crossed over her chest, her eyes fixed on the floor, Nico's the only one who doesn't look anxious or angry, perhaps he wants me to succeed, cause that would mean he also can.

"Arae Jackson, kneel before the council," Zeus says at last.

I do what he asks me right away, holding tightly to the hilt of my sword.

"The gods are granting you the greatest honor," he says. "Do not waste it."

"You'll be the General of our armies," Athena continues. "You're allowed to deny or authorize quests as you deem it proper, and you shall join them if you think it's necessary."

"If we call, you must answer. We will grant blessings only when you truly need them," Zeus continues. "Choose wisely, we cannot grant you all twelve."

"Lastly," Hades smiles coldly. "You cannot favor your former godly parent over the rest of us. From now on, you are the daughter of Olympus."

"Do you conform to these rules?" Zeus asks.

"I do."

Every god in the room lowers their weapons and scepters to the ground, golden lines travel through the marble surface and climb up my body healing my bruises, cuts, and scars.

"Stand."

I hold onto Almighty as I get up and notice the purple cape around my shoulders, a gold pin shaped in the form of an omega keeping it in place. I also feel something on my head, and when I reach up, I discover it's a crown of gold laurels.

Zeus looks far from happy. "You may go."

I put my sword on the sheath that's hanging over my hips, and I keep my head up as I walk away without turning my back on them.

I think of the friends I lost, of how lonely they must've felt in their last moments. I think of all the lives it could save to have someone who shows up when we need them. A hero who doesn't think we're inconsequential and who by magical binding, can't turn their back on us.

I remember when the monsters thought I was Achilles.

I'm just like him now.

"You should take a nap," Annabeth suggests. "You have to look your best once we arrive."

Ara raises a brow. "I didn't come here to look pretty."

Annabeth shakes her head. "A child of Olympus is above everyone else, Ara. The Romans won't like that."

Ara feels her stomach twisting in knots, but she smiles despite it. "Won't be nice to discover a Greek is their commander, huh?"

"You'll have to assert your position, and for that, you need to look strong," Annabeth squeezes her shoulder. "Sleep, I'll call if we need you."

The girl makes her way to the cabins. As she goes she spots Leo moving from one side to the other on the control board, but she leaves him alone, they all need to focus on themselves.

Jason helped her practice the wolf glare all Romans have, and he's taught her the way the legions work, but just like Annabeth, he's warned her they'll show resistance to admitting she's their superior.

Ara has faced worse crowds, so she thinks it'll be fine. Becoming a daughter of Olympus didn't keep her loved ones out of danger, but at least no one can keep her out of the fight now, and she's going to become whatever she must to secure their victory over Gaea.

The girl falls asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow, but she doesn't get a demigod dream this time. When she opens her eyes, she's no longer on the ship.

"Ara," Aphrodite looms over her, eyes just as serious as the rest of her expression. "We need to talk about your curse."

I don't understand why my friends are acting this way, but they aren't upset because I wasted their time, they're angry because I've given mine up. Ambition blinds me from the one thing the others can see.

I didn't care at first, I was fifteen years old yet my name would be written in our history books. No one was going to be able to put out my fire for a very long time.

I wish they had.

Book II ->

Taglist.

@siriuslysirius1107 @ask-giggles1303 @ash-the-hoarder @im-planning-something-look @bandshirts-andbooks @coolninjapaper @thewaterlily @whenisthefall @1randomcomic @you-bloody-shank @sunflowergraves @owlalex44 @taylordaughter @typicalsolangelolover @writingmia @espressopatronum454 @slytherinnqueen @orbitingpolaris @obxstiles

#twoidiots writing #pjo fanfic #pjo hoo toa #pjo fandom #percy jackson and the olympians #leo valdez x oc #leo valdez fanfic #doo

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quietbluejay · 5 months ago

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The Buried Dagger Take 2 #7

back to flashback land there's been a bit of a timeskip

the tide is turning and there is hope

alas

mortarion thinks about a few specific people who died as they're going through the city, a woman offers him a canteen of water and he takes it. she looks familiar… it's the girl he rescued from being trapped under the cart in the last flashback she's now fighting in the war we get an intro to one of morty's buddies, who recently lost an arm, and they get joined by a comrade who hadn't gone with them dural: hunda, did you leave something behind hunda: no jokes mortarion: a kill-beast tried to eat him, but he was so unpalatable it choked to death hunda: not you too?! ohh hunda's the guy who ended up as a dreadnought, the one who's too human anyways there's good news, the west is free as well as the south

heh

this is like the one scene ever where he has a sense of humour

Morty is asking for news about Typhon, who was off on a mission there's no word from him, though all right it's time to go drink some alcohol from a homemade distillation apparatus of dubious origins mortarion: meh. weak. hunda: i thought it was nice

mortarion don't make your friends drink what might be wood alcohol…

there's some lessons he never was able to unlearn they get interrupted from talking about how they'll drink from Necare's skull by an air raid siren there's an overlord airship! nope, false alarm it's typhon with a captured airship typhon drops dramatically

typhon and morty hold hands claps wrists and mortarion thinks about how the both of them are outsiders and how despite everything, even though he's been accepted, a lot of people still don't like typhon and he just gets an ominous vibe mortarion: nope. squashing that thought so how are they gonna finish this war? typhon has a suggestion but he knows mortarion isn't gonna like it mortarion also has one of those lol

let's check out the games workshop of the weapon makers for mortarion's group

typhon: does mortarion know that about himself? ngl it's pretty impressive for this outfit anyways typhon is moving on to more…numinous weapons now if only he could get mortarion to adopt this kind of weapon, they could finish the war fast so what's mortarion up to? trying to put together a suit

it's basically a diving suit typhon: i assume you've tested it?

they don't have enough suits for everyone though mortarion wants to take a small elite group his buddies

mortarion: what other option do we have typhon: wellllll…. and chapter ends on that

it's time for Swallow to wax a little poetic

blah blah blah loken isn't from terra but he like manyyyy people was raised to consider it We're Not Calling It Holy

okay as always im weak to the 40k foreshadowing so there's hundreds or maybe thousands of people he's fighting he's got a thought that possibly some of it was warp sorcery that got them to do this

guess loken's doubled down on the great crusade being the bestest after his brief flirtation with "are we the baddies" then it goes through the fighting styles of all the knights errant oh hey lord of the flies is back again Varren (ex-World Eater) lights him on fire it's completely ineffective! lord of the flies does a neck grip and neck snap rip Varren

time for flies to eat and now the thrilling continuation of what's up with malcador sadly he didn't die

the small bit of hope in his shriveled heart turns to dust etc etc so he wonders what's up with Rubio why does he hate him so much and how on earth was this triggered

malcador thinks it's kind of appropriate that a dude like him doesn't get an honourable death or a heroic last stand remembered through the ages and ha ha ha i am as we all know a giant sucker for dramatic irony so i'll give Swallow this one anyways malcador doesn't have access to his powers here he decides to ask rubio why he's doing this

rubio swings his sword and malcador blocks it with his staff despite on the previous page the assertion that he's just an old dude without his powers his staff has a secret flamethrower that he manages to react fast enough to trigger that's some good reaction times vs a space marine

then surprise! malcador blocks the blow with something hidden in his robes

Sky:

Lmaoooo I'm sorry, I know I keep bringing up my fic in your LRs But it's just so funny to me how people will ardently defend Mal as the one true friend of the Emperor But canon will make him way shadier than I ever have

bluejay: this book is very much making Mal the evil advisor to good guy emperor because that's kinda swallow's thing LoreLover: Which is all retconned by Abnett with Malcador's long drawn out monologues on the Golden Throne validating the Emperor. Sky: that's 40k for you

back to garro's pov which we have thankfully been able to avoid for a while but alas he thinks about how he finds varren's death offensive

uwu garro attacks the lord of the flies time to berserker

and hey remember the apothecary who despite all his death flags, survived Flight of the Eisenstein?

yeah well he died offscreen he was trying to find a cure for the plague and got infected and garro ended up mercy killing him

please do sadly i know it will not happen suddenly, giant maggots emerge out of the ground! oh no how will our heroes survive this one…

we're back to Malcador and he doesn't die easy, as he says to Rubio malcador talks himself up to rubio lol rubio attacks in a frenzy but every attack gets blocked by Malcador's….

he uses the device to increase gravity on rubio sure why not

so rubio is frozen and then malcador walks off dramatically to kill all the Sisters which he of course does with zero problems now that they're dead he can use his psychic powers and we find out how rubio got turned into a sleeper agent and i am not impressed because i've read Know No Fear, Swallow so on Calth Erebus went and found Rubio and turned him into a sleeper agent yes because it's not like Erebus wasn't extremely busy on Calth blah blah ooo Rubio's gonna be important you know, i still want a good explanation for how malcador yoinked rubio from calth in the first place yes i know it's a garro thing but garro made it through the ruinstorm and you know instead of contacting ultramar or anyone in authority WHO ARE VERY MUCH CUT OFF AND DONT EVEN KNOW IF THE EMPEROR IS ALIVE no he goes and grabs rando ultramarine psyker but that's a complaint for another story i guess

anyways, malcador carefully undos erebus' work because even though it'd be easier to just kill rubio, he really wants rubio for his grey knights project rubio wakes up with no memory and sees a line of dead Sisters malcador: yeah they went berserk and attacked us and you killed them malcador: also your new name is koios malcador: grey knight time and chapter ends on that

time to return to flashback hour Mortarion follows Typhon and notes that people are going to eat well tonight based on what he can see of all the stuff people are bringing in from Typhon's ship Mortarion wonders briefly if Typhon did it so people will be kinder to him and then dismisses that thought

typhon, blatantly changing the subject: so what do you think we'll go kill when the overlords are dead? mortarion: i dunno, anyways what did you want me to see? it's time to go into a metal crate in the cargo bay mortarion immediately feels witchcraft upon them well he feels that greasy feeling so, what is typhon's idea about surviving the toxic airs of the upper reaches

mortarion loses his temper and immediately starts thinking 'oh yeah i always overlook his unorthodox tactics and unpalatable statements but this is too far" and…yeah typhon has become a lot more understandable from this reread

mortarion: you would have us become the enemy in order to beat them ahh morty, morty, what happened to you? (rhetorical question) so inside the cage…is an Overlord!!!

he hears a buzzing beside his ear owo yeah this is the mortarion who later thinks "it's all justified and it's just temporary, we'll fix it when we've won"

man if i were typhon i'd be extremely bitter

man these two need to get trapped in a pear wiggler together i mean, a different one from canon

lmao meanwhile, now alone with the overlord, typhon shrugs typhon: welp typhon: anyways guess it's just the two of us

volcral: not today. but i could show you…. typhon thinks about the dreams he has, of an eternal garden of rot… "as a child he was always fascinated with decay" ;-; i cannot believe this reread has me feeling so much sympathy for typhon haha Arzach: He is a bastard but him ressenting Morty is understandable and being bitter, given what he lived in his village, is pretty normal. Too bad he was already doomed. Tho I wonder, does his Overlord blood is a lock, forcing him to go toward Nurgle ?

typhon kills volcral, and his body immediately starts to decompose typhon watches, fascinated ;-;

next time we'll continue with flashback hour but we're jumping forwards a bit

#bluejay reads warhammer #warhammer 40k #horus heresy

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lis-likes-fics · 3 years ago

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Surveillance | Chapter 13

Warnings: Mentions of death...

~~~

It had been a little over of a month of endless work, going back and forth between cities and states, trying to gather information about Typhon and your whereabouts while also trying to keep the issue away from the press. If people found out that the Prodigy was missing, it would be another big issue for SHIELD to worn through.

Tony worked hard to try and figure out anything he could. He used connections he knew he probably shouldn't have and was met with many dead ends. He used his own tech to try and track you, even sending out a few iron suits that were set to search around the world for you. He could not believe his best friend was missing, and he refused to rest until he found you.

Maria also worked tirelessly to find you. She got permission for multiple mission regarding potential leads and worked beside Natasha. She could not help but feel guilty, like your disappearance was her fault.

Natasha.

Natasha was a complete wreck, but she did her best not to show it. She worked day and night, she had not stopped to rest once- if you did not count the times Maria had to spike her coffee to get some sleep into her. Natasha was heading all over America, meeting up with any and every connection she knew to figure out anything she possibly could about this mysterious organization and where it might be.

She had not given herself enough time to stop and think about anything. She only worked, slaved over the case to find you again. She felt guilty, more guilty about this than she had about anything in all her life. She felt guilt for letting Fury take her from the case, letting you slip between her hands and fall into the hands of the enemy she worked so hard to keep you from.

"Nat, you should go home and get some rest," Maria told her friend with a hand on her shoulder, worried for her well-being.

Natasha shook the hand off of her and then shook her head, "No, I'm fine."

She sighed, "Natasha, you're headed overseas with Stark tomorrow for another lead. You need your strength. Go take Scout to Lemont's and then go home and get some rest. I've got everything until then."

Natasha took it upon herself to take in Scout. She, Maria, and your father were the only people Scout trusted. Natasha alternated between having her and your father taking her for a day or two. She was pretty beaten up, she was not as lively as she usually was, not to mention her level of hostility. Just about everyone was an enemy to her now, and she was constantly sniffing around for your scent so she could search for you.

Natasha looked at Maria then, her face almost a glare, "That's what you said last time."

The words had truly slipped from Natasha's mouth, and she did not mean them. Maria looked down, giving a soft sigh. "I know, I'm sorry," she said gently.

Natasha shook her head, "No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. You're right, I'm tired." She pat her leg and got the attention of Scout, who was lying on the floor next to Natasha's desk. "Come on, girl. Taking you home."

The dog stretched and stood as Natasha gathered her things so she could leave. "I'll be back," she told Maria. "Hold things down while I'm gone."

"You got it, boss," Maria nodded.

Natasha dropped Scout off with your father; your father who was not doing well at all. He was beginning to become a bit of a recluse, his happy demeanor diminishing. He already lost your mother, he could not bear losing you too.

Natasha had suggested moving him out of the state and over to California, a spot close to the Avengers compound so he had better security. He said he refused to move until you were found and safe. So he stayed in his home alone and regularly asked about any updates regarding information on where you might have been.

As Natasha got back to her home for the first time in a while, she locked the door and threw her keys on the table in the room. She sat down on her couch after grabbing a bag of chips to appease her growling stomach. She had been surviving off of coffee and whatever food was brought to the base at lunch time for the agents.

She turned on the TV, and it immediately flipped to the news. The first thing she saw was a photo of you on the screen, a question written across the screen in bold letters: "Has the Prodigy Gone Missing?".

The reported spoke, "Questions begin to rise regarding the prodigal daughter, Y/N Y/L/N, on whether she has gone missing. Her father has yet to open up about the issue, but footage shows that she was last seen at the Manhattan Mall making a phone call. Clients of the celebrity has spoke about the missed sessions, and anyone who may know anything about the topic has kept quiet-"

Natasha's hand actually trembled and she dropped the remote onto the couch after promptly turning off the TV. Her lip trembled next, her eyes wetting with tears as she found herself breaking down. The tears fell from her eyes and her chest began to heave.

She began to get angry, angry at herself for crying, angry at herself because she knew why she was so upset about you disappearing. She was angry at herself because she got attached, she caught feelings for you.

It was her responsibility to keep you safe and now you've been kidnapped by some new organization she did not know anything about. She was working so hard to find you, but she didn't even know where to even start to look.

"God, I'm so stupid," she cried as she wiped at her tears. "I should have stopped this, I could have stopped this. I'm sorry, it's my fault."

Her body shook as the sobs racked through her. She angry at herself, and she was exhausted. She hated that she was crying, she hated that you had ended up making her so weak and helpless. It wasn't long before her tears had put her to sleep, her body exhausted from the endless hours of work and the emotional torture she put herself through. Before morning came, she was up again with a fresh shower and a quick breakfast before she got on a jet with Steve and Tony, headed off to the Atlantic Ocean to talk with a prisoner about the organization they were hunting down.

Natasha flew one of Tony's expensive jets over the Atlantic Sea, her navigation picking up on their approaching destination. "This should be it," she said, sending a signal to the underwater prison.

The sea opened up to reveal the landing pad, and Natasha descended the plane onto it. Tony stood, adjusting his expensive suit as it landed, the "roof" closing after them. They both exited the jet and were accompanied by a couple of agents.

"I'm glad to see you made it, ma'am, sir. The prisoner is just this way," one of them lead the two to the cell somewhere deep within the base. Both held guns, as did Natasha. Tony had his own weapons concealed on his person.

"Why did you want to talk with this prisoner about the disappearance?" the agent questioned curiously.

Natasha spoke plainly, "We think he may know something."

"And if he doesn't," Tony said, "I'm sure he should know someone who does." The agent shrugged a little before stopping at a large set of doors, scanning his handprint as the sensor confirmed him and opened the doors. As they slid open, they all walked inside and down another winding hall.

When they came up to another door, a smaller one that probably lead to the cell itself, the agent told the two, "Don't get too close to the cell, and do not attempt to enter the cell." He stepped to the side and opened the door to allow the two inside.

The doors slid open and Natasha and Tony walked in. Natasha crossed her arms over her chest and Tony stuffed his hands in his pant pockets as they looked at the prisoner in his cell as he read a book that seemed warn down.

"Visitors for little ole me?" he asked, his eyes not lifting from his book for another moment. When he finally looked up, Zemo had a little smirk on his face, "Natasha Romanoff, Tony Stark, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"We're just looking for a little bit of information," Natasha said, tilted her head a little with a small smile on her lips.

"I'm sure you can manage that," Tony gave a sarcastic smile. He was still bitter about the last time he saw this man.

Zemo set his book down, now fully invested in the conversation he was involved in now. He hadn't had visitors in a while, and he was not about to waste this opportunity. "I am at your disposal."

"Yes, you are," Tony said.

Natasha shifted her weight and sighed, "Tell us everything you know about a new Russian organization named Typhon."

Zemo chuckled a little and shook his head, "It isn't new at all. In fact, it was formed just around the same time as Hydra, it was supposed to be a better version."

Natasha tilted her head as she listened. Zemo added, "And, while it is primarily Russian, it spans out all over the UK, Canada, and Australia."

Natasha stiffened and shared a glance with Tony. He asked, "Why haven't we heard of it until now?"

Zemo's small smirk did not falter as he answered the question, "Typhon is supposed to be the king of all the beasts, which makes him superior, smarter. They know how to keep out of the eyes and ears of someone they don't want."

"Why do you know so much about Typhon?" Natasha asked curiously. Even if he was a criminal, his knowledge of this underground organization seemed like it would be plentiful.

Zemo's eyes momentarily descended to the ground before he looked back up, "Typhon struck my country and threatened my way of life." He glanced at Tony, "I'm sure you're aware of my revenge streak."

Tony clenched his jaw, "Where would they take someone famous?"

"Are you talking about the lovely Prodigy?" he questioned. Natasha began to wonder how he knew about your disappearance, but discarded the question. It was important.

"Yes," she said simply.

He thought for a moment before admitting, "I, personally, have never been to a facility, but it they were going to take someone so important, they would need to take them somewhere with high security to ensure invisibility. If they're coming for fame, they're coming from Russia." He looked at Natasha, "But I'm sure you already knew that, Agent Romanoff."

She had, in fact, known that. Their original thought was Russia, they already had many agents scouring their resources to find out where.

"Any big name we should know about?" Natasha wondered, raising a brow.

Zemo thought for another long moment before nodding, "I did meet a gentleman, two actually. They were partners. Aleksandr Tushenka and Dmitri Yermolov."

Tony turned to Natasha, pointing a finger up, "Tushenka, wasn't he that lovely gentleman who tried to kidnap her that first time last year?"

Natasha nodded, her smile still set on her lips- despite her stress- as she replied, "Yeah, I remember Tush-Tush. We threw him in prison. I'll look him up again."

"Talkin' to Tush-Tush, I'll put it in a memo," Tony said.

Natasha nodded, "Well, if we have anymore questions, we'll be sure to drop by."

Zemo did a small bow, "Please do. I don't normally have visitors."

"Anyway, goodbye, Nemo," he said, waving as he turned to leave, Natasha at his side.

"Wait, there is something else you might want to know," Zemo said quickly. Natasha glanced back over and he leaned forward, as if to share a secret. "I heard... whispers... of a project, an operation. It's called Project Chimera. I've heard it's lethal, many test subjects have died. You better find her quickly, or she will too."

Natasha clenched her jaw and asked, "Why are you even helping us?"

Zemo sat back in his seat, "It's as I said, Typhon struck my country. I want them destroyed. Who better to do that than you?"

Natasha lingered for a moment, a meaningful stare exchanged between the two. She then tore her gaze from him and started leaving the room with quick steps, Tony walking again with her. The guards closed the door behind them and began walking the both of you back.

After the long process of getting back to the entrance, they had to go through a brief meet before they got back into the jet. They lifted up and out of the sea as they returned home. On the jet, Tony asked curiously, "Do you think he was telling the truth?"

Natasha nodded, "Yeah, I do." She thought for a moment before saying, "Hey, do me a favor and look up that name- Aleksandr."

"Yeah," he mumbled as he grabbed his advanced tablet in his hands and began doing just that. He then spoke up slowly, "You won't be too happy about this... but he was broken out of prison just almost a week before Y/N was kidnapped."

"What?" she snapped, "Why wasn't anyone informed?"

"Must have been tipped off," Tony shrugged, "But at least we have a confirmed country. We don't have to scour Switzerland."

Natasha sighed gently as she thought about the information given to her, "Alright, they broke out Tushenka and managed to keep it quiet. If they took her to Russia, we need to be digging around there. I have tons of contacts that I can talk to. We might have to send a few agents down there, just in case."

Tony pressed on the pad again with quick movements, "I'll start redirecting the search."

"Trust me, Stark," she said, lifting a brow, "You don't want to have your suits flying around Russia. You might want to switch them out for tiny drones or something."

He put a hand over his heart in mock shock, "Natasha, I did that a long time ago."

"So," Natasha said, a smile ghosting over her lips at her friend's behavior, "You get your contacts, and I'll get mine. I'll look into both names and see what I can find anywhere."

Tony agreed, already on the job as he started scrolling through his technology to find anything he could on Tushenka and Yermolov. It would be a long search.

~~~

Surveillance taglist: @natasha-danvers @chasethemoon @thelastpyle @readings-stuff @xxromanoffxx @t00manyfand0ms @diaryoflife @mad-moddi-1327 @natsbaby @inquisitive-nix @wandanatlex send a message or make a comment to be added!

#natasha romanoff #natasha romanov #black widow x reader #black widow #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff x y/n #natasha romanoff x you #black widow x y/n #black widow x you #marvel fanfic #avengers fanfic #marvel #mcu #avengers #fanfic #lgbtq #lesbians #hot russian spies #fanfiction

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itsatoyboat · 4 years ago

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i finished true colors and i’m having a lot of thoughts that i NEED to talk about.

(if this is gonna be long idk, i apologize for your eyeballs)

1. i honestly didn’t like alex at all when i saw the trailer, i was thinking “hmm idk about this one” but as soon as i started to play the game i fell so in love with her, she is so freaking smart and funny, she genuinely cares about the people around her and her story it’s very different from the other characters from LIS anthology. i truly enjoyed seeing alex’s development throughout the game especially her realizing that her powers can actually help the people around her and not harm anyone, the way she controls it after her conversation with gabe was such an awesome upgrade from the alex who was so ashamed of her power to alex superwoman. i liked how the game explored her emotions and her mind about the past, the mine part where alex was struggling to feel everything she felt in those days and then embracing everything was one of my favorite parts. it shows a lot of growth.

2. this game has AMAZING CHARACTERS, every single one of the characters was well written, they had life, they had problems, they had their own emotions with private stuff that was going on in their lives and you could actually talk to them and meet their “layers”. mac for an example was an asshole but i couldn’t pretend i didn’t felt his concern and fear around typhon, the way he was terrified about everyone hating him, he was scared for his life and being very paranoid, i was concerned about him and the game giving you the choice to speak to him or leaving him was a tricking decision cause you could leave him alone suffering or try to help him out, maybe saving his life and this is a lot but he’s alive. the game makes him real and that’s what makes me INSANE about the characters. i know, i’m talking about a game where you’re supposed to feel the characters’ feelings but that could possibly go wrong as well if the characters were shallow and poorly explored and that’s not the case with true colors. they had purpose.

3. alex’s power it’s probably my favorite power. the choices in this game was way harder than the first two games, the craziest thing is you can choose if you want to take someone else’s feeling so they can stop feeling that way, saving them from themselves making alex suffer instead and that's selfish. don’t get me wrong, i’m not calling alex a selfish person but taking someone else’s feeling doesn’t make anything better, you’re taking their right to heal, to be alive and that is so fucking awesome. you have this power to help someone, to “take their pain away” and you will learn that people need to feel what they are supposed to feel so they can move forward cause if we don’t, we are never going to learn. we see that charlotte is pretty angry about gabe’s death, she blames everyone but mostly ethan, she is miserable. alex can choose between taking charlotte’s anger or leave her. if alex takes charlotte’s anger, charlotte is left completely empty, she doesn’t feel anything and when i say anything it’s anything. she is left emotionless and bitter, she doesn’t pass through her way of mourning for gabe and she doesn’t have alex’s back when alex confronts jed. if alex leave charlotte to her anger we have a nice moment between them on the festival, talking about what happened and charlotte gets alex’s back on the black lantern and that’s what i mean from being selfish, if we take someone else’s feelings we are being unfair to them, we are choosing for them and people are supposed to feel, heal in their own time or overcome. by taking charlotte’s anger we deprived her from healing, we are not helping her, we are just making an natural process even more difficult and slower. alex being able to hear what someone is thinking and enter that person’s world from what they are feeling at that moment it’s the best detail for me, everything changes, we get to see the world through that person’s eyes, we can understand them but we decide what to do with that, we can be selfish or actually help. of course, we can take pike’s situation for an example also, if we take his fear we can help him overcome typhon and we get to expose jed but pike’s fear was necessary to take and charlotte was not necessary, pike at least had the pendrive with the recorded calls on it so we had a chance for things to get better.

4. chapter 5 was an amazing ending. finding out the truth about typhon, jed was never a hero, alex confronting her past, the confrontation and seeing who was going to be on your side, alex’s final conversation with gabe and the end, it was better than i thought it could be. i truly loved seeing alex’s past, even with everything that went down she turned to be a good person who wanted to be loved (her passion for music being the thing that helped her connected to me in a lot of levels, that creep cover though i screamed so hard when she started to sing). the mine part was absolutely insane not just alex surviving that fall discovering that gabe was looking for his dad for so long, jed knowing it and all of this time his dad actually died because of jed, alex finding the truth by taking her mom’s necklace back from what was left of that accident it’s so heartbreaking, the confrontation was crazy, i thought no one was going to believe alex because jed was so loved by everyone there it would be so easy to doubt alex and just be on jed’s side which was what ryan did but it’s understandable, jed was his dad, his hero. alex’s speech on jed exposing him after everything was one of the best monologues on that game and man this game had AMAZING dialogues and monologues, everything felt so real and beautiful, the best part of it it’s to forgive jed that’s where alex break him, he regrets everything even more cause when we find out the truth. we find out why jed never enjoyed talking about being the hero of haven springs. at the end jed wasn’t entirely a bad person cause when we forgive him he gives back alex her dad’s jacket talking about how he wanted to give it to gabe but couldn’t, that’s something that made me love even more the characters even jed that was the “villain”, which i don’t think he is. what he did was terrible and he knew that, he tried to pretend nothing happened when alex started to talk but at the end he broke, that always haunted him and that’s the difference between him and jefferson who was actually the villain in life is strange he wasn’t forced to do those things, he killed rachel, he killed chloe, he manipulated nathan, he was going to kill max and if max didn't stopped him on the arcadia bay ending he would kill even more students at blackwell.

5. alex and steph relationship was the purest thing on this game, it was smooth, it was organic, it wasn’t something out of the blue, steph liked alex since the beginning. the plan to pick someone to flirt with diane and get her pendrive i chose ryan and afterwards steph started to feel something, she was so upset that alex used to think ryan was “hotter than her” (i only chose ryan cause i didn’t want to see steph flirting with diane but i saw the scene where we pick steph and omg i should’ve chosen steph cause that scene it’s hilarious), steph was happier around alex, every time she had an opportunity to flirt with alex she took it. seeing their love grow through the chapters was beautiful, i know we can choose ryan over steph but i don’t believe ryan liked alex the way steph did, you can literally see that no matter what alex did steph was going to support her and look at her with so much love and respect and that’s why i think alex and steph’s relationship it’s so pure and right. also they looked so good playing together it’s so cute that they have the same passion for music and THAT LARP SCENE FOR GOD’S SAKE MY HEART MELTED!

6. this part is exclusively to talk about LARP and the fight scenes, it reminded me so much of final fantasy it was so COOL, well thought and so fun. it was awesome to see everyone taking care of ethan and doing their best to make him happy.

7. talking about ethan, this game opened a conversation in my head about charlotte and ethan, i started to think a lot about what charlotte said about ethan how she felt happier when gabe was around and now she was stuck with only ethan again, it made me think that maybe charlotte didn’t want to have a child or if she didn’t had ethan she could have gabe again. that could open a conversation about women who didn’t want to become a mom but it doesn’t mean that charlotte would hurt ethan which makes total sense to decide to leave her alone and not take her anger, she would never hurt ethan. it was again another tricking decision cause we get concerned about ethan when charlotte starts to talk but we know deep down she cares so much about her son, she does everything for him.

life is strange true colors became my favorite life is strange, the story it’s different and great, it’s literally finding the truth about everything, when we understand people’s feelings we discover the truth about them and situations, we understand everything. this game actually made me cry harder and think so much even more than the first one and boy i love the first one so badly. it talks a lot about empathy and how we react to people’s emotions, your choices in this game are way harder than messing with time or moving things with your mind, it’s choices about things that could happen in real life eventually and that is what makes this game so important to me, it’s real.

and also it's the first life is strange to have happy endings like.. ok big steps for my non depression finally

#life is strange #life is strange true colors #alex chen #gabe chen #max caulfield #chloe price #square enix #game #games #gaming #god i wrote so much #steph gingrich #life is strange 2 #life is strange before the storm #ryan lucan

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loveofafangirl · 4 years ago

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72 Hours

[Baron Zemo Masterlist] [Marvel Masterlist]

Pairing: Baron Zemo x Reader/You (no gender, race or body type described)

Synopsis: You are tasked with watching Zemo for the weekend while he assists you in providing tech support and intel to your teammates in the field. *Sort of: Enemies to Lovers* *One-Shot: Not same “reader” as my other stories.

Word Count: 2.2K (sorry this is longer than I intended)

A/N: This is a request for @purebloodwitch, where y/n is part of the Avengers and used to taking care of everyone, but at Zemo’s safe house he starts taking care of her and she is uncomfortable at first. I hope this fits what you are looking for. I hope you enjoy it.

3 days.

72 hours.

That's how long you had to suffer his company. You stare out the window, taking in the country view. The car was taking the two of you to one of his safe houses. You had wanted to go on the mission with the rest of your team, but you were the most organized and could most easily relay intel to different groups as you uncovered it. Plus, it had been decided you were the least likely to bring physical harm to him. Though, you weren't so sure at the moment.

You had been against Bucky's plan to release Zemo. You remembered the bombing at the U.N. and the fallout that began that day. You blame him for the Snap and the loss of so many of your colleagues. If he hadn't turned the Avengers against one another, maybe Thanos never would have collected all six Infinity Stones. Maybe no one would have vanished, tearing the world apart—twice: once when they disappeared and again when they returned. As far as you were concerned, Zemo was the catalyst that led to Thanos, the need for the GRC, and the rise of the Flagsmashers. Everything began that day at the U.N.

You look at your watch:

71 hours and 26 minutes.

When you arrive at his safe house, he insists you let him hold the door for you. You had always stood on your own, caring for those around you. You weren't used to gestures such as these, nor did you want them, least of all from him.

Your fists clench when he refuses to go in first. Reluctantly, you proceed, allowing him to hold each door for you.

"Would you like a tour?" He gestures grandly around the lavish apartment.

"No," you state coldly, ignoring his coy smile that seemed to dip slightly at your tone. "Just tell me where to set up."

"Perhaps by the windows," he suggested. "The panels are one way. You can see out, but no one can see in. It should give us a good vantage point to keep watch without being noticed."

You begin moving the bags of equipment you brought.

"Allow me." Without waiting, he takes the bags from you and carries them to the area he had previously pointed out.

You follow wordlessly.

"There you go."

You nod your gratitude, unable to bring yourself to say thank you to him.

"Is there anything else?"

"No. When I'm done setting up, you'll need to tell me everything you know about Project Typhon and get me the decrypted files you insisted that only you could access."

"Of course, I am at your service."

You keep an eye on him while working. You still couldn't believe you got stuck babysitting. Now your focus was split between the work and making sure he didn't get into any trouble.

He moves about the kitchen, grabbing this and that. He returns with a tray in his hands containing a teapot, two cups and saucers, small sandwiches, and a tin of cookies. "I had the pantry stocked before our arrival."

You give him a curious expression.

"I did not want you believing they had been sitting for the years."

"I'm good."

He pours two cups of tea, offering one to you. "You haven't eaten since early morning. Please, help yourself."

You breathe deeply, trying not to give in. You had packed some rations, but you hadn't eaten any yet. You hate how appealing everything looked. You begin reaching for it, but pull back, now convincing yourself it could be poisoned. You turn your attention back to your work after a quick glance at your watch.

65 hours.

The evening passes slowly. You juggle your Zemo-sitting duty with decoding his cryptic replies into useable intel to relay to the two teams you were monitoring while also keeping an eye out for any digital chatter that may hinder your mission.

"Why me?" You sigh to yourself, thinking back to how you had asked Sam that same question when he first told you this was your assignment.

"You're good with people, Y/N."

"So you're sticking me with him?" You pointed an accusatory finger over your shoulder to Zemo.

His head shifted to the side, "No offense taken. I understand the difficulties. If you allow me a moment to explain."

"You understand nothing," you chided. Your gaze narrowed to a glower.

"Easy, Y/N," Bucky interjected.

"You of all people—" Your head shook in disbelief. "I was there. I saw what he did."

"We need him. He's the lesser of two evils right now."

You crossed your arms, not sure that was true.

Your thoughts drift back to the present. You check the time again:

63 hours.

Zemo lounges beside you, nursing a drink in his hand. "I surmised you would decline a drink like my own, so I brought you a coffee instead. I noticed you had a few over the past days." He gestures to the warm mug on the table beside you.

The rich aroma captivated you as you breathe in its bold notes. You really needed it. Begrudgingly, you took your first sip. It is better than you expected. A hum of delight slips from your lips.

Noting his growing smirk, you muster the strength, uttering, "Thank you." You surprise yourself at the sound of your tone. It was much more cordial than you had intended it to be.

"It was my pleasure, Y/N."

The two of you remain in silence, except for the occasional exchange needed for the mission. You were so focused on the job you hadn't even noticed him refill your coffee cup until you picked it up, expecting to savor the last drops but found a full cup met you instead.

He kept working, seemingly not looking for any credit. You didn't offer any, but you had to bite your lips back to stop a smile threatening to erupt.

57 hours.

You rub your eyes and stretch your arms. "I'm going to try to get some sleep. Don't even think about trying anything."

"Wouldn't dream of it." He stood as you made your departure. "Gute Nacht. Sleep well."

You walk away without looking back. You knew there were agents strategically placed along the perimeter so he wouldn't get far, but you still worried.

Warm sunlight streams in the window of the large bedroom, gently caressing your face. The mattress is so soft and amazing; it sucked you into its depths immediately, and you fell quickly. You nuzzle in the soft fabric of the bedding, not wanting to move. It was your best sleep in months, even though it was only for a few hours. You think to yourself that you could get used to this.

Your body tenses at the thought as you remember where you are. You jump out of bed and quickly get dressed. Your team is counting on you. You swipe your phone checking the time.

52 hours.

You head straight to your setup; your fingers float nimbly across the keyboard as you attempt to focus solely on your work. Your stomach growls, pulling your focus. The scent of bacon frying greets you. You turn toward the kitchen, and for the first time, notice Zemo.

He catches your eye. "Would you like to join me for breakfast? I've set the two places." Sensing your hesitation. "I can bring it for you as well."

You glance at your phone. No new communications from the team. No alerts from any of the traces you had set up. Nothing to keep you there. Before you know it, you're walking in his direction.

He moves around the counter, pulling out one of the high bar chairs for you.

You sit, even allowing him to push it in for you, a warmth spreading over you.

"Please." He gestures to the plate in front of you and takes the seat opposite you. "Enjoy."

You nibble on a piece of bacon and let the taste linger on your tongue. It was just the way you liked it. He sips his black coffee, watching you enjoy the first bites. You cover your mouth, feeling self-conscious suddenly. You shake your head, trying to brush away the feeling as you question why you care what he thinks.

Your phone lights up, but it's nothing important. You glance at the time 7:11. You try to remember why you cared. Your attention shifts once more to the man across from you; that was why.

51 hours.

The two of you go about the day. Zemo is more useful than you expected. He quickly decodes and unscrambles messages and relays them to the team. Like you, he thrives on analytics and strategic thinking. There were moments where you actually enjoyed the conversation that developed.

A few times, your fingers brush against his while reaching for the same thing. He always offered his apologies with that smile that made you forget what he'd done that day.

Before you know it, he's bringing you dinner.

"Is it really that late already?" You question, glancing at the time. You accept the plate. "Thank you."

You enjoy a pleasant evening together, sharing the meal he prepared for you. He was a great cook to your surprise. This was better than anything you had eaten at the Avengers compound lately.

As the night lingers and you wait for your team to send you new intel, he tells you stories about Sokovia. Once, he mentions his son before pausing and quickly changing the topic.

In your rush to label him as a terrorist because of that fateful day, you never listened to his reasonings. They didn't excuse his actions, but he wasn't the cold-hearted killer you had expected based on his military profile. He was just a man who lost his entire world.

When you part for the evening, you gaze back, lifting your hand. "Good night, Zemo."

The next morning, you wake softly, breathing in the comfort of the bed. You reach for your phone; his file is still open from where you fell asleep reading it. You wanted to understand him. There was so much more than you gave him credit for.

You realize you were wrong. He wasn't the cause of everything that happened. You were. Everything began not the day at the U.N., but that day in Sokovia, with Ultron, and with the Avengers. They had created Zemo; he was merely a product of their haste. They were the catalyst to their own undoing. He had just shone a light on it.

You lie back thinking over the past two days—the conversations that you'd shared, the kindness he had insisted upon, even when you tried to care for yourself, and those small touches that elicited a feeling you couldn't understand.

Your last day together followed much of the same patterns: sharing meals, breaking down and relaying intel, keeping watch.

You notice how at ease you are. Your body is calm with no tensions or worries. You hadn't checked the time since—well, you weren't really sure. A look of horror flashes on your face as you realize you were enjoying this—enjoying him.

"What did I miss?" He questions, strolling in from his bath, still in his robe.

Your body flushes, and your eyes cascade over his form. Realizing what you had done, you turn away and clear your throat. "Can you please put some clothes on?"

He shrugs and walks off. As soon as he turns away, you find yourself chewing your cheek as you watch him leave. "Snap out of it! The only thing that matters is the job," you scold yourself.

For the rest of the day, you keep your distance, averting your gaze, and avoiding him as much as possible. When he wishes you good night, you don't reply, hurrying off as quickly as possible.

You hope to find reprieve in the quiet of your room in the comfort of the softest mattress you had ever known. However, you toss and turn all night, your mind restless with growing thoughts of him.

You skip breakfast, or so you had planned. When you didn't come out, he left it outside your door.

You pack up in silence, catching glimpses of his curious look. You know he is probably wondering what changed, but he doesn't pressure you.

As you leave, you take one glance back at the beautiful apartment.

He waits at the door, holding it open for you.

This time, you don't protest and even offer your thanks. A smile fills your face as he opens the car door too.

Your eyes close, remembering all the good moments from the past 72 hours. Without thinking, you turn into him, brushing a kiss on his cheek. "Thank you."

Your gaze lingers on his soft brown eyes longer than you intend. You feel trapped, unable to break away, but you don't want to either. You lick your lips, wanting more, but worrying what it would mean. You decide to go for it, but as you move to him, he's already there, meeting you halfway until he pulls you entirely into his embrace. His lips are warm and inviting. You feel the world around you melt away under his tenderness.

Your heart flutters when you finally pull away. "That's a one-time thing."

His head tilts to the side, considering your words, and then nods in agreement.

You get in the car, your gaze still focused on him, a devilish smirk forming on your lips. "Unless I decide it's not."

Marvel Perma(til the end of the line): @the-soot-sprite; @fandomxreaders ; @moonstuffsteve

Zemo tags: @montypythonsholysnail ; @killsandthrills ; @noavengers ; @nalabarnes1031 ; @trelaney ; @willowtheewisp ; @marchingicenotes7 ; @valquiria3000

#baron zemo #baron zemo x reader #baron zemo x you #baron zemo fan fiction #the falcon and the winter soldier #tfatws #zemo #zemo x you #zemo x reader #helmut zemo #helmut zemo x you #helmut zemo x reader #daniel bruhl

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lifeofroos · 4 years ago

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A/N: FINALLY a PROPER TITLE in THIS HOUSE. Anyway Hera has some words about and for Clarisse.

AO3 - KoFi

The Queen

Hera stood by her throne. It was devastating to see her home the way it was right now. There was rubble everywhere. Gods were fussing around, trying to fix what could still be fixed. Heroes were laying around everywhere, most of them wounded, all of them trying to keep a brave face. At the entrance of the throne room lay her statue, smashed to pieces.

Zeus took his place on the throne next to her. His gaze drifted around the room, as the other gods took walked to their thrones. It was time to address the heroes who had defended Olympus.

It was always the same. The demigods thought for the gods, they got a pat on the back, and then they got send away until next time. And there would always be a next time.

Zeus held his head high, as always dreading the moment where he had to thank his heroes. Poseidon looked smug, Hades uncomfortably out of place. Demeter was worried, Aphrodite entertained, Apollo and Hermes glad that it was over. Artemis and Dionysus had a certain pride over them, as if they were glad that their campers and hunters showed the titans what for. Hephaestus stayed in the background. As always it was unclear what he was thinking.

Then there was Ares. He was enthusiastically talking to a girl, clearly one of his daughters: She was bulky, muscled and mean. Quite probably Clarisse. Hera had heard of that girl before.

Clarisse was forcing a smile, yet Hera could see right through it. The girl was sad, afraid and exhausted. She must be the one Ares had insisted on blessing, halfway through their fight with Typhon.

Ares was the last one to sit down. He sent his daughter to the side of the throne room, where she waited with the other demigods.

Zeus began his speech, his long, long speech, which bored everyone after the first five sentences. Yet, it gave Hera the time to study Ares’ daughter.

The queen had seen enough broken people to recognise when someone had lost a loved one in battle. Perhaps a boyfriend, but it could also be a best friend, or a brother. It made her feel pity, yet curiousity at the same time. She knew how passionately her son could love the people close to him, under the violent demeanor. Perhaps this girl had gotten some of that nature.

After Zeus was done, the nature spirits, heroes and others had been rewarded, and promises had been made, Hera made her way out of the throne room, to a group of Ares’ children. A grand deal of them were boys, with only two or three girls. Still, Clarisse was clearly the leader of the bunch.

The queen coughed. ‘Excuse me?’

Some of them glanced at her, yet they kept chattering on. Hera clenched her teeth. She couldn’t have expected the children of Ares to be well-behaved, yet it still bugged her.

‘I’d like to speak to you.’ She pointed at Clarisse, who pulled a face.

‘Speak to me, ma’am? May I ask why?’

‘You’ll find out.’

For a second, the young woman (It was more of a young woman then a girl) was clearly debating whether to actually go. Then she took a look around her group and followed.

‘What is it, your majesty?’ She asked, when they entered one of the many secret rooms Olympus had hidden away.

‘I wanted to see you for a moment.’ Hera decided to ignore the sarcastic manner in which the young woman had spoken to her.

‘Why?’

‘Be quiet.’ Clarise had large bags under her eyes, eyes which betrayed how tired she really was. ‘You lost someone.’

‘I appreciate that it isn’t a question, at least.’

‘Who was it?’

Clarisse wanted to give a sassy remark. She just didn’t have the energy for it any longer. ‘My best friend,’ she sighed. She tried to push down the tears that welled up in her eyes. ‘Her boyfriend died a few days ago. At least they are back together now.’

‘Only your best friend?’

‘How little do you value friendship?’ Clarisse clenched her fist. She knew that she shouldn’t tick the goddess off, but boundaries were difficult to see right now. She hoped Hera would have some compassion for the situation.

The goddess forced a smile. ‘It’s not that…’

‘I wasn’t trying to be a homewrecker, or anything. I’ve got a boyfriend.’

Hera pushed her hand to her temples. ‘I do not care if…’

‘But you do. It is bright and clear that you do.’

Hera clenched her fists. ‘Give me a moment.’ This girl was absolutely out of line. Yet, when the goddess looked her in the eyes again, she once again saw that sadness, that absolute fatigue.

The hero looked away. ‘Ma’am, I am not feeling so well right now.’

‘...no. No, I reckon you do not.’

She had seen demigods like this before. Ones that were worn and tired and done with fighting. And every single time, she had sworn to herself that she would remember it. Perhaps now was the time to show she did.

Carefully, she placed her hand on Clarisse’s forehead. The demigod violently smacked it away. ‘What in Hades are you doing?’

‘Don’t use his name against me. I only want to bless you. Perhaps then your life will be easier, from now on.’

Clarisse shook her head. Hera narrowed her eyes. ‘What are you-’

‘Because that would fix everything, of course.’

‘...What?’

‘Because if you’d bless me, that would fix anything. That would make me forget the horrible past and happily move on, la-dee-da, wonderful. Then you gods won’t have to feel guilty any longer.’

‘Young lady-.’

‘I’d rather you didn’t bless me. I’m an Ares kid, we fight for ourselves. If you want to give me anything, just… I mean, promise me you’ll get me off of what I said just now without consequence, okay?’

Hera could only stand there, mouth agape. She collected herself. ‘Very well. Go back to your life, then. Exactly the way it was. Make the best of it.’

Clarisse looked like she regretted her outburst, yet she held her head high. ‘Thanks, your majesty.’ She bowed her head, before running out of the room, back to her siblings, who were already being driven to the elevator. It was time to go back to camp.

Hera held her gaze fixed on a point just above the elevator. Next time, she’d begin before it was already too late, before they were already disillusioned. No matter what, she’d have to try again. A queen didn’t give up, not when she had a plan so clear she could almost, álmost, grasp it.

A/N: I feel like this work has a slower pace than my work usually has. I like it though, and it fits Hera

#clarisse la rue #percy jackson #percy jackson and the olympians #pjo #percy jackson fanfic #percy jackson fanfiction #pjo fanfic #pjo fanfiction #percy jackson and the olympians fanfic #percy jackson and the olympians fanfiction #hera pjo #ares pjo #writing #writer #write #fanfic #fanfiction

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bellygunnr · 4 years ago

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Checksum

Chapter I: Before the Fall

BT-7274 MCS JAMES MACALLAN // TITAN BAY 4 EN ROUTE PLANET TYPHON, IMC-CONTROLLED SPACE

The Titan hangar was busy with pre-mission jitters. Pilots worked with their Titans to complete last-minute checks, ensuring that all systems and hardware were functional before their inevitable deployment. The spacious area reverberated with the sounds of heavy machinery and pilot banter, intermingling to create a pleasant, familiar ambience that told BT-7274 everything was… fine. The humans were comfortable. His fellow Titans— even if they weren’t Vanguard-class— were functional. And according to the Command frequency, the 9th Militia Fleet was making good time to their destination.

They had to make good time. They were too far from home, too deep within enemy territory, to risk anything but. Still, he was— in his pilot’s words— itching to be deployed and start working. Operation 217 had been attached to Protocol Two: Uphold the Mission for so long that its presence in his subroutines was frustrating. Worse, his pilot did not seem to share his frustration, or his singular focus on what they had ahead of them.

For that matter, no one seemed to be focused on the mission. BT-7274 allowed itself to sink down to the floor, legs and arms pulled tight to its chassis. He does not look at his pilot, instead lifting his ‘eye’ to watch the two other Titan-pilot pairs at the opposite end of the hangar. They were new to the Marauder Corps., but experienced in their own right…

When they weren’t goofing off.

BT willfully cycles a puff of air through its vents to synthesize a sigh. Lieutenant Shaver was lazily tossing a ball between himself, Lt. Freeborn, and their respective Titans, both of whom got inevitably tied up in passing it between themselves. He watches Shaver climb up the distinctive steel-blue hull of his Titan and shimmy across its bent arm, plucking the ball out from between her massive fingers.

“Careful, BT. Grumble any louder and I might think you want to play a round of catch.”

BT-7274 switches its gaze instantly to his pilot, Captain Tai Lastimosa.

“That would be irresponsible,” BT-7274 says. “Titan bays are not for playing in.”

Tai laughs. BT looks away again, now inspecting the ceiling and the various moving parts composing it.

“I know you’re bored, BT. Here— I’ll give you something to do. Can you find Jack Cooper for me? He was supposed to be here five minutes ago… and well, I think he’s lost,” Tai says. “These new carriers of the Militia are a mess to navigate.”

“That is a hazard of repurposing captured scrap,” BT-7274 says passively. “I will look.”

Not that he wanted to, necessarily. But Tai was invested in Jack Cooper, so he would support his pilot in all related endeavors, because the rules and protocols Tai was violating did not intersect BT’s hardwired regulations. Additionally, all personnel in the hangar currently knew of Jack Cooper’s existence.

“Captain Cole is bringing Cooper now,” BT-7274 says. “ETA one minute.”

Technically, BT was also not supposed to be accessing the ship’s surveillance systems, or the comm chatter, but no one had stopped him yet— and it directly benefited his pilot. He tracks Cpt. Cole and Cooper through the ship, noting that the latter looked anxious, maybe even uncomfortable. Curious.

“Don’t just sit there, BT. Help me get this simpod ready,” Tai calls.

BT-7274 picks his way across the hangar floor. Attached to the wall was a raised catwalk equipped with pilot gear, weapons, lockers, and exactly four simulation pods. All four were of IMC make, stolen years ago by the Militia and reprogrammed for pilot training. BT knew that Tai disliked them— because he couldn’t fit comfortably in them.

Tai snorts, looking up at him with a hand placed on his hip. Whatever he was going to say, however, is lost, as the massive powered gate leading to the rest of the ship starts to grind open. BT-7274 rocks back into a resting position and diverts all his focus into passive observation.

Through it, two people enter. The shorter of the two jogs ahead, climbing up the stairs to where Tai stood fiddling with the simulation pods. BT sympathizes with the older Cole as he shakes his head in good-natured exasperation.

“I got lost,” Jack says sheepishly.

“That means we have no time to waste,” Tai replies. “Into the pod, Coop.”

“You sure about this, sir?” Jack asks.

He’s nervous, BT can tell, but less so than the first time he and Tai had engaged in training. BT squints his optical array at him when they make eye contact, a short acknowledgment. Jack quickly diverts his gaze, then climbs into the cramped space of the pod. He looks small in it, like it could swallow him whole once the door closed.

Tai swears as he moves to power-cycle it and BT-7274 reluctantly accesses it to match their neural link with that of the pod’s. As soon as his pilot and Jack are loaded in, he retreats— it would be sometime before he was needed. Someone had to keep Tai upright while his mind was elsewhere, after all.

But that left BT open to play interference with the rest of the hangar’s occupants. Already, Shaver and Freeborn were approaching, expressions plain and curious.

“What do you think of the kid, BT?” Shaver asks. “Where’d Lastimosa even meet him?”

BT-7274 restrains himself from venting a sigh. Cooper is breezing through the pod’s initial lessons, despite Tai trying to show off his home planet. A brief search shows that Harmony is not where Jack Cooper was born.

“I heard it was boot camp,” Cole says. “Is that true?”

He snaps his optic to the Militia officer and says nothing. In his experience, if he was silent long enough, humans figured out how to entertain themselves among each other. At any rate, he did have other things to focus on, like keeping the modified sim stable. Jack was performing well enough to impress Tai.

He would have to begrudgingly agree.

#titanfall #bt 7274 #jack cooper #tai lastimosa #gunny writes #gunny fic checksum

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border-spam · 5 years ago

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Leech Lord - Whispers in the dark

The Leech takes everything and gives nothing.

It hates the twins in a way we can’t fathom, humans aren’t what it is. It doesn’t think or speak, it only feels, and the loathing that it pulses with towards these pathetic, broken insects that imprisoned and ripped it from the great song is incomprehensible.

No escape, no end, no way to be whole - just its warped voice split between two ignorant, useless parasites. It wants to hurt them, it wants them to suffer, so it gnaws at any flash of joy they experience. Tears apart what gives them comfort.

...Eats them alive.

Tyreen’s great drive to find Pandora was fuelled by it, whispering promises of belonging, of family, of love into the ear of a teen who hadn’t felt any of those since Leda crumbled to ash by her feet.

It insisted Typhon was wrong, the Bandit’s weren’t mad, they were lost.

Everyone knows Pandorans are crazy. Everyone knows the "natives" that scour across the desert in warpaint and masks are a family of lost souls looking for belonging. The Leech whispers to Tyreen DeLeon that she could be their redemption, their mother, and she sets her plans to leave her prison planet in motion. They are her people, the abandoned and lonely it says. She can be their God.

It turned it’s teeth to the parts of Tyreen that were able to experience happiness the moment her feet touched Pandora’s dust and the Eridium it had been seeking to feed on didn’t respond. She was a dud. She was a broken, useless joke of a Siren host, and it raged.

Troy never stood a chance.

Without its presence he’d be naturally quiet, his low self esteem is part of his nature, though it would be manageable. The Leech hurts him through his flaws - the cracks in his ego. His own doubts creep into his worries, but once he reaches the end of that train of thought? It continues. He survives every day with something whispering horrific shit into his ear even as he struggles to find ways of dealing with his own negative feelings, his paranoia and insecurities. It twists the knife a little deeper with every hissed mockery, and it’s done it his whole life.

So it's.. sad. It's just sad. Troy covets so much that his companions have. Love, friendship, care, but he can’t accept what he wants so desperately. The Siren power takes that from him.

If someone like JK who he admires so much, who he has on a mental pedestal and wishes he could be more like, offhandedly mentioned something about him they admired? It’s robbed from him. He’d have the moment of disbelief, the embarrassed shyness, the excitement then embarrassment over the excitement, the stuttering and confusion and that kind of flushed cheek slightly teary eyed response from someone who’s terrible at accepting positive comments about themselves... but then it's the filth from The Leech just after.

The moment he had a flash of happiness and maybe the first blossom of something that could be considered pride, it would be there:

"̶ They're w̵r̴o̵n̵g̴,̴ ̸ or they are l̷y̶i̶n̶g̸.̵"̸

̴"̸T̸h̸e̸y̵ ̴a̶r̶e making fun of̵ ̵y̸o̴u̴. Y̵o̷u̵'̷r̵e not so stup̸i̶d̸ ̵t̸h̴a̷t you'd believe th̸i̶s̷,̶ ̶ you're smarter than that. Yo̴u̷'̴r̸e̸ ̷c̸l̵e̵ver. ̴O̵f̴ ̷c̸o̴u̶r̷s̸e that's a lie, w̷h̷y̷ ̷w̴o̵u̷l̵d anyone actually look up to you? Brok̷e̵n̵ ̵b̴o̸d̷y̶,̴ ̶r̶otting soul, w̶e̵a̵k̴ ̸b̸o̴nes and failing lungs? They ei̶t̶h̸e̷r̴ ̶d̴o̷ n't know what they are saying or they are spitting in your fac̴e̸.̴ ̴Which is it?̵ ̸W̸h̴i̴c̷h do ̴y̵o̴u̴ ̵t̶h̵i̸n̴k̸ ̶i̶t̷ ̵i̵s̵?̸"̸

̷"̷O̸h̷,̴ ̴t̵h̴ey are your friend? Are they, Tr̸o̴y̵?̵ ̶W̴e̵ll, then they don't know. Tell the̶m̸ ̷exactly h̴o̸w̵ ̷ wrong they are so they won't ever make that mistake again. Te̷l̶l̶ ̶t̴h̶e̶m̸ ̸w̸h̶y̵ ̷n̷o̵ one s̸h̸o̵u̵l̸d̸ ̵want you. ̷I̵t̷'̸s̷ ̷o̸k̵ ̴t̸o̸ ̷b̶e̶ ̵a̴n̵g̸r̴y, they should have known better. It's their fault."

̷"̵I̴t̶'̶s̸ ̷t̷h̶e̵i̶r̷ ̸f̷a̵u̶l̶t̶.̷"̷

That’s what he's dealing with, always. With everything his entire life, and it's not even in real words he can argue back with it's just feeling. Ty echos the exact same shit to him audibly and he tries to stand against it, always has, but it’s so much harder internally. He still fights it though, he always tries. He's exhausted by how much he has to work to keep it under control without even understanding what he's constantly fighting, and it's so very hard.

Seifa can't explain it even when she’s seen it so for so long - the struggle. Can't put it into a sentence she can express to the others, but she gets it.. an inkling of it, seen it behind his eyes so many times. She’s seen.. eyes. Or maybe she’s just going mad, that’s a pretty likely option too.

Understanding the war raging inside Troy is why she asks what she does in an encrypted E-Com message the night she leaves. Begs Ven not to hate him even after everything.

She knows that if he wasn't constantly fighting as hard as he is, there would just be nothing of him left. Every single interaction would be a nightmare - constant aggression, jealousy, envy, hatred lashing out at everything.

For people looking from the outside he seems like a pathetic excuse for a man child, throwing tantrums and destroying rooms, but in reality these episodes of giving in are so rare compared to how often he fights it back.

He's surprisingly good at hiding it which is why he can come across "normal" sometimes and also means he's desperately empathetic, but he's just not experienced with people enough to place that empathy the right way very often, or respond to it in a way that helps and doesn't actually make things worse.

That’s one of the reason his companions do actually like him still, why he’s magnetic in such a bizarre way. There is a clear awareness this man genuinely adores the few people who are kind enough to tolerate him and is trying, but there's a balance to consider. It doesn't matter if he's painfully aware he's driving people away if he doesn't correct the behavior doing it.

On top of everything really, there's Tyreen.

Ty's defacto way of dealing with feeling any competition for Troy's attention is to just remove the competitor. It’s always been that way from the day she first felt the pang of unease when he started talking to Seifa after a month of them recovering on her ship.

Troy.. . Troy talks to her, not other people, Troy is her brother, Troy is PART of her, why is it fair that he not be there when she needs him? When she’s lonely, when she needs his stupid smile and his terrible jokes and that pathetic stutter...

But she can't make the people he slowly befriends leave, they are all in positions of power where she isn't able to make them vanish without it being noticed, so she defaults to her second method.

Turn him on them.

For all his bullshittery, Troy tolerates about 6 years of having Tyreen lying to him in private about how the others see him, how much they care. Subtle, knife sharp, and building in viciousness over time till by late COV when he begins to fall apart, it's abusive mental warfare - and he never turns on them.

He breaks, he fucks up, he thinks Seifa is gone forever, he hurts JK, he works Ven to dust, but he never once turns on them in the way Tyreen has been seeding for years. He doesn't let her win even though he refuses to even admit he's aware what she's doing and how many times it’s happened in the past one way or another.

So shit piling up in those 2 years without Sei, the strain from Ty, the weird shift from media to murder to chasing a fucking VAULT, the no sleep, the fear for his friends even when he's also losing the fight against the thing that makes him spit venom at them?

He just can't do it forever.

The Leech takes everything and gives nothing.

Asks are open!

#borderlands #borderlands3 #bl3 #troy calypso #tyreen calypso #calypso twins #leech lord #my hcs #my writing #seifa #sbsart #borderlands 3

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the-broken-truth · 4 years ago

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Fenyx Rising - For The Love Of A Blacksmith [Part 1 - 3]

[The Hall of the Gods - After the Defeat of Typhon]

It had been about 4 weeks since the defeat of Typhon & when Fenyx found out she was a Demi-God; the daughter of Zeus himself, no less. The Hero on High stood at the edge of the Hall of the Gods with Phosphor perched on her right shoulder - the two of them watching the sunrise in peace...

"YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!" The booming voice shouted from behind Fenyx, causing the white-haired demi-god and her namesake to exhale.

'Nevermind the peace, I guess.' Fenyx thought as she turned away from the rising sun, walking over to the other gods. She looked at God of War as he glared at the Blacksmith God, who returned the glare in kind...or...rage?

"She's my wife, Ares! You're my brother and you'd get her pregnant like that?! Have you no honor or compassion?!" Hephaestus yelled at his battle-scarred brother.

"It's not my fault you weren't a real man and your wife came looking for one!" Ares barked back.

Fenyx looked around at the others: Hermes was just watching the brothers yelling at each other, Aphrodite was watching with a pleased smile on her face; she was really enjoying this. Athena couldn't care less but she was also watching. Fenyx looked back at her brothers.

"Alright, guys. That's enough." Fenyx said but neither one of them listened to her. Summoning the Axe of Atalanta, Fenyx slammed it on the ground, sending a loud sound that broke up the fighting, and made all of the gods look at Fenyx who dispelled the axe before looking at her brothers with anger in her eyes.

"What was that for, Fenyx? You almost blew my eardrums out." Hermes said as he twisted his pinky into his right ear.

"I've had enough of this. It's been 4 weeks since Typhon's Defeat and you guys are still fighting." Fenyx exhales and runs her hand through her short white hair. "This is a serious matter but I cannot let this go on." She looks at Hephaestus with compassion in her eyes. "Hephaestus, you're my brother and you know I care for you." Fenyx began.

"But you care for me more, right Fenyx?" Ares asked.

"Quiet you." Fenyx snapped at Ares before turning back to her Blacksmith Brother. "Hephaestus, I know all you want in your life is love and you obviously love Aphrodite but it is not a love that she returns for she loves another." Fenyx said.

"But...I can get her to love me, Fenyx. I know I can if I change more than maybe..." Hephaestus began until Fenyx rose her hand to stop him from speaking.

"That's the thing, Hephaestus - as much as you love her & as willing as you are to change for her, she is not willing to do the same for you. Her heart is set on another and when the heart wants something, it will not stray away from it; just like your heart doesn't want to stray away from Aphrodite."

"Then what do you think I should do? Just give her up? Let my brother have her?" Hephaestus asked with raised eyebrows and obvious anger in his voice.

"Yes. That's exactly what you should do." Fenyx's words shocked everyone in the Hall of Gods.

"What?!" Hephaestus gasped.

"Whoa, this is going to get good." Hermes said.

"You tell him, Sister!" Ares said.

"Exactly, Fenyx." Aphrodite clapped.

"This is unexpected." Athena said as she looked at her sister.

"I know my words might not make sense to you, Hephaestus, but I want you to know that I am only saying this because I am tired of seeing you hurt over and over again. Your pain may have made you stronger but love can do the exact same thing but there is no love in a marriage to where a wife disrespects her husband and goes to his brother." Fenyx said.

She watched Hephaestus - he said nothing but Fenyx could see the thoughts swimming in his eyes so she continued.

"You want love, I can understand that but you shouldn't try to find it in a person you were bound to on the whims of another person - Zeus married Aphrodite to you so that other people wouldn't fight over her. That's not love. You think you need to change to make people love you - No, you are perfect, Brother. There is someone out there for you who will love, hold, cherish, honor, and give you their hearts for everything they are worth but you have to let go of the toxic relationship that you are in and give yourself the chance to find them." Fenyx said she looked into her brother's loyal brown eyes.

Hephaestus looked at Ares and Aphrodite before looking back at Fenyx.

"You know this to be true? You know there is someone who will love me for who I am? Flaws and all?" Hephaestus asked with a calm voice.

"I know this: Every person - God, Animal, or Mortal - has a partner for them; someone who will complete them and make them a better version of themselves. I also know this: If you truly love someone, let them go - If they come back to you, they are yours. If not, they never were. If you truly love Aphrodite, then let her go and find that piece of yourself." Fenyx said before taking a step back, looking at her brother.

Hephaestus closed his eyes before taking an inhale then an exhale before he opened them and spoke again.

"I...I am going to speak to my father." Hephaestus said.

"Want me to meet you at your forge when you are done?" Fenyx asked.

"Yes, but wait here until the right moment. You will know when." With that - Hephaestus vanished in a flash of golden light.

Fenyx walked past the confused Hermes before taking a seat at the edge of the structure.

"Does anyone know what is going on?" Hermes asked.

"No, I don't know why Hephaestus would want to talk to Zeus." Athena said dismissively.

It wasn't until a golden band appeared around Aphrodite's left ring figure - it was her bond to Hephaestus. It remained there for a few moments before it shattered into pieces of light then dissolved into nothing. Her bond to Hephaestus was broken. Her marriage to Hephaestus was done! She was free from Hephaestus!

"The Bond! It's broken! I'm no longer married to Hephaestus!" Aphrodite cheered.

"That's why he went to see Zeus, to break the marital bond. Interesting, Hephaestus; I'd never thought you'd do it." Athena said.

The sound of Fenyx opening her wings caused the gods to look at her.

"Thank you so much for freeing me from Hephaestus, Fenyx. I'd give you another blessing if I had more to give you." Aphrodite said with a smug smile.

"I didn't do it for you, Aphrodite. I did it for Hephaestus - he needs love too." With that - The Hero on High flew off in the direction of the Forge Lands; her heart set on helping her brother find the love that he deserved.

#immortals fenyx rising #fenyx

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cruddyborderlandstheories · 4 years ago

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[takes a deep breath in]

And another thing

If the Destroyer ate people and gained their smarticle particles then why did it fall for the most basic trap in the beginner's hunting book or whatever idk I don't hunt

Like okay

It eats entire civilizations, says the eridians

It takes all that intelligence for itself, says the Eridians

We've gotta trap it, they say

But this is a dummy easy trap to spot, they say

Let's give it bait, they say, and look pointedly at Nyriad but her eyes are empty, so they sigh and resign themselves to their job

And then they go party inside Pandora and the Destroyer actually goes in to eat them while Nyriad sits on Nekrotefeyo while she closes a big vault with glowing magic siren hands

What.

(how she knew when to close it with the machine when she was halfway across the galaxy I genuinely have no idea but that's not that implausible given the Eridian tech we've already seen, so I ignore it)

Anyway

Ur telling me. That this big tentacle monster thing with the knowledge of multiple, entire civilizations (billions probably trillions of minds) combined somehow couldn't spot that obvious trap and maybe instead of going inside didn't just put a few tentacles in to grab some folk

Like its big ol brain wasn't like

'Hm. If I go in to this suspicious enclosed space after these people, it might be a trap and I might get stuck here. I should wait outside'

The way the *situation* is described it sounds like nothing more than a big mouth attached to what amounts to a predator animal that can be tricked with basic traps

Put the food in the box, when it goes in the box, shut the lid. Trapped.

Which might not even be true, because the Eridians tell (ha.) Nyriad to specifically note that it is smart enough to not be tricked by traps, unless the bait is good enough

So I have a few branching theories

The first is the basic 'the Eridians lied to Nyriad (what else is new) and the Destroyer really was a thing that just ate a bunch to the detriment of everything around it and the Eridians used Pandora + the machine to send themselves back to their home dimension while making it look like they sacrificed themselves to trick humanity'

this is sorta kinda backed up by my write up on how tychos ribs might be the actual Vault entrance, with the eridium keeping it open and how when you enter you're clearly in another dimension and not inside a moon (there are not galaxies inside moons afaik that's probably a space issue there) and how the giant eridium crystal isn't necessarily the Vault despite being named it, just a part of it that lets the Sentinel act with more power and control the area (like a simulation the VHs entered, which I insist was expanded on with the claptastic voyage dlc). I'm saying like in tps, you enter the main vault thru the elevator and thus there is no big 'walks thru a portal' situation, u just take an elevator down. Same with when u enter Pandora as a Vault. It's not a huge thing, you just enter it from one side and boom suddenly youre in another dimension. Which the Eridians most likely are from, anyway, given Nekrotefeyo means First Landing in their language. (Also how a lot of the names of locations in the Machine are about a home)

Second part that backs it up is when you open the Vault of the Destroyer in BL1, that's definitely one of those Vault traveling film things in between those rocks. It's not a big canyon like you see on Pandora in 3 that Tyreen just jumps into (see above). So *that* Vault led to somewhere, and it led to the Destroyer (emergency human feeding port for some reason). Meaning there was at least one functional gateway between those two areas. The point is that there were ways to travel into and out of the Vault of the Destroyer, you didn't always need to crack Pandora open like an egg.

Also when Tannis uses the machine, she near immediately shows that it can just. Create portals. Gameplay/story convenience or not, thats a pretty big deal because if the machine was build solely to seal Pandora, why does it have the power to create portals between two places?? Couldn't they just. Teleport the Destroyer into Pandora with a well-placed portal then close Pandora real quick with the Machine and not have to all sacrifice themselves? Shit they could have even teleported the Destroyer inside then placed two looping portals, one at the exit and one in the far back so whenever it tried to go out the exit, it was sent back to the other side of the inside of Pandora until the machine worked its magic.... Or even if they did need to bait (no.) the Destroyer in, couldn't they just use the machine to teleport themselves back out then close the portal real quick. Yeahhhh. So anyway that's what I think actually happened, but back to their home dimension so Nyriad thinks they died. I don't think Nyriad really knew what she was doing with the machine, and Tannis is a tech whiz so I'm not surprised she immediately discovered this thing had other options built in. It's possible even that the guardian watching her was doing some stuff behind the scenes (have I ever mentioned I always assumed that was Scourge. Like. The way he speaks gives off that vibe that he saw what Nyriad did and is pissed about it).

Anyway the other theory is that the Destroyer was totally aware it was a trap, but decided the knowledge of the Eridians was worth the wait.

OK so. This one isn't as backed up as the other one, but essentially if this thing is as smart as we are lead by Nyriad to believe:

It eats entire civilizations -> it gains the knowledge from everything it eats -> it has the combined knowledge of entire civilizations

Then this thing ought to be like. Pretty fucking smart right??

So why would it let the Eridians lead it into a trap like that?? The only answer I can think of is that it wanted their knowledge. They're from another dimension (tho given one Typhon line so is the Destroyer? I think I remember that right??), they have this wacky tech, they're the ones that build the prison its about to enter, and the Guardians that will guard it

Getting that knowledge could have been worth it for the Destroyer for whatever reason. Other than, like, using that info to break out of prison and wildly miscalculating, idk, it didn't seem like it was building stuff and using big smarts to eat people, just sorta giving them the munch. It could have wanted info on the Guardians, since things clearly aren't what they seem with the Seer's dialogue, so maybe it's using whatever it learned about the Guardians to control or manipulate them into controlling and manipulating other people into opening the Vault

It could have been, if it's so damn smart and did actually eat the Eridians and gain their knowledge, biding its time and waiting for the perfect moment to escape. Idk how patient something that is described as endless hunger can be, but that's another option

Ofc there is always the option that the Destroyer was just having an off day, didn't consume any coffee shops that morning, just was too sleepy, saw the opportunity to eat an entire civilization of bug people, and went for it. Maybe it was just having a bad day idk.

Istillthinktheeridianscreatedandorbroughtthedestroyerhereandnowtheyrefleeingfromtheirmistakesandwatchingustoseewhathappens

OK byeeee

#Things I zone out about in the shower: Nyriad logs #borderlands #borderlands 3 #cruddy rambles

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mythologyfolklore · 4 years ago

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Trouble Earth-Born

(A/N: This fic is about the birth of Erikhthonios, one of the legendary kings of Athens. Contains mention of past attempted rape and attempt of indirect murder and insanity)

Athena wasn't quite sure of what to think, as out of nowhere a Protogenos manifested in front of her as a middle-aged woman holding a baby in her arms.

“Venerated Foremother”, she greeted the person in front of her.

“Daughter of Zeus and Metis”, the other returned.

To a mortal she would have seemed like your average chubby matron. But she radiated such raw and incomprehensible power, such cosmic and primeval might, that to a goddess like Athena there was no doubt, who she was.

Gaia, the Earth Mother.

The generous and the terrible.

The nurturing and the destructive.

The mother of the sky, the sea, the mountains, islands and the fair spirits of nature, also of the Titanes, the Hekatonkheires, the Elder Kyklopes … and the monstrous Typhon.

“What gives me the honour?”, Athena questioned the Protogenos.

The dubious honour. That she didn't say.

Gaia held out the baby she had been holding. “This is yours now.”

Athena's bright blue eyes grew to the size of saucers. “I beg your pardon?!”

“Do you remember that little non-consensual almost-tryst you had with the blacksmith god?”

Athena frowned. “As if a woman could forget something like that.”

“And do you remember, how you threw the cloth, which was soiled with his seed, onto the ground?”

“Oh … oh, holy shit, did I accidentally knock you up?! I'm so sorry!”

“I'm Mother Earth”, Gaia pointed out. “Do you have the faintest idea just how many children I have? I mothered half of the Kosmos, Ouranos included! That fucking arsehole”, she added, muttering. “Either way, this happens all the time. I'm used to it and I can't even say, that I mind. However, this baby here has a little of your essence within him. So congratulations, Pallas Athena, head-born daughter of Zeus – you are now a virgin mother.”

And before the goddess could protest, the Protogenos pressed the child into her arms.

Then Gaia sank into the ground and once more became one with … well, herself. Leaving a very flabbergasted Athena holding a godsdamn baby.

“Sooo …”, Athena sighed and regarded the child. It was a boy and he had jet black hair and big brown eyes, just like his father – but despite him being a baby, she could tell he had her aristocratic nose and her high cheekbones. “I guess you are my son now, huh?”

Whelp.

She might have been the goddess of knowledge and good counsel, but she was also a virgin goddess; she had no idea how to do this kind of stuff! This was something for … pretty much any other of the Olympians.

Oh well … she would just have to take responsibility and try to raise this child. After all, it wasn't his fault, that he had been conceived like that and there was no way she would approach the god, who had tried to rape her in his drunk delirium.

Somehow this troubling memory gave her the idea for a suitable name for the earth-born baby.

The baby cooed and stretched out his chubby little arms. Okay, that was cute.

Athena smiled: “Well, I suppose I will have to raise you in secret, so no one can find and tell the world about a virgin goddess having a child.”

And with the child in her arms, she flew away and off to her new city, the one that now bore her name: Athens.

“You want us to take care of this chest, Potnia¹?”, Pandrosos asked.

Athena, who was holding a small chest in her arms, confirmed: “That's right. I want you to take this wooden chest here to the chamber behind my altar and watch over it, until I come back in a few days. You don't have to do much, but always remember this: Do. Not. Open. This. Chest. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Glaukopis²”, the three daughters of Kekrops, king of Athens, replied in unison.

The bright-eyed goddess nodded: “Good. Now I need to tend to my other duties. See you in a few days. And I warn you, if I find out that you disobeyed my order to not look inside this chest, you will suffer a fate worse than death. Keep that in mind. Toodles!”

Then she returned to Olympos, before anyone there would question her absence.

A few days later, Athena was carrying a whole-ass mountain across Attica (how? Goddess strength, that's how!) for the Akropolis, when a crow joined her in flight.

“Oh, hello, Koronis!”, the goddess greeted the bird.

“Hello!”, the crow replied. “I'm sad to say, that I come with bad news.”

Athena stopped short. “What happened?”

“Well, you asked me to keep an eye on the Kekropides, if they would do as you told them, right? They didn't.”

Promptly the goddess dropped the mountain.

“They opened the chest”, she said blankly.

“Yes, but only Aglauros and Herse. Pandrosos doesn't know. I'm so sorry!”, the crow cried, “I tried to talk them out of it, but they wouldn't listen!”

“It's not your fault, Koronis!”, Athena hissed, suddenly seized by wrath. “Oh, when I get my hands on those little bitches, they're going to get it! As for you, don't tell anyone of what you have seen, do you hear me?”

“My lips- I mean, my beak is sealed.”

“Good.”³

The wrathful goddess teleported herself to her temple in Athens, where she found Herse and Aglauros screaming hysterically on the floor.

With measured steps, Athena approached the chest. In it lay a baby, obviously none other than her earth baby, who was crying softly. A snake was coiled around him protectively and hissing aggressively, though it calmed down as soon as it saw Athena. The baby's upper body was normal, but from the hip downwards, his body was that of a serpent. As soon as he saw his adoptive mother, he stopped crying, bubbled happily and lifted his tiny arms.

“Hello, sweetie”, Athena cooed, completely ignoring the hysterical screaming behind herself. “Sorry for being away so long. But now I'm back.”

She picked him up and cradled him in her arms and he fell asleep in no time, while she was crying on the inside and desperately prayed to Khaos, Ananke and the Moirai, that she would be spared the shame of having to explain, why she was raising a child.

With blazing eyes and fury in her heart the war goddess turned to the mortal women, who were still having a mental breakdown on the floor.

And with a mighty, divine voice, she bellowed: “Go to the cliff behind my temple … and jump!”

The women, completely out of their minds, scrambled to blindly follow the goddess's order.

Athena followed them. She craved the satisfaction of seeing the ones who had dared to cross her fall to their deaths.

Imagine her surprise, when they jumped and she saw two flashes (one bronze, the other crimson) descend from the sky – and a second later, the two madwomen were caught in their fall.

“Hermes! Ares!”, Athena exclaimed.

“Hi, Athena!”, Hermes chirped, while struggling with a raving Herse in his arms.

“What's the meanin' of this?”, Ares demanded to know, as he was holding Aglauros in a vice-like grip (for a second Athena marvelled at his impressive pair of crimson wings, which he was beating to keep his stability against the wind and his struggling, screaming captive). “Why'd ya drive these two insane and make 'em jump off the Akropolis?”

Hermes nodded. “Yeah, we'd like an explanation. For that and for why you're holding a baby in your arms.”

Oh shit. She was still holding the little one in her arms and now her two half-brothers had seen him! Ares hated her and would be all too happy to rat her out, while Hermes was a notorious chatter box.

By Ananke, this really wasn't her day.

Athena forced herself to calm down and step back, so the two could land.

“Come inside my temple”, she sighed. “And I'll explain everything. And while we're at it, you could tell me, what you're doing here and why their worthless lives matter to you enough to save them.”

With a scowl she pointed at Aglauros and Herse, who were still winding themselves in the gods' arms.

“It's a deal”, Hermes accommodated her and he and Ares landed carefully.

“But first we gotta restrain these two”, Ares stated. “They're gonna hurt themselves otherwise.”

“So, lemme get that straight”, Ares said, as he nibbled at his ambrosia. “My brother Heph tried to assault ya, while he was drunk. You kicked his arse, because obviously. Then some of his cum got on your thigh, you wiped it off and threw it away, also because obviously. And then Gaia thought it would be hilarious to turn this soiled cloth into a baby and push it onto you, even though she knows, that you have sworn to remain virginal and childless forever.”

Athena nodded.

The older god scowled: “Yeah, that sounds like something that fucking arsehole Protogenos would do.”

The wisdom goddess almost chortled at that.

“And then”, Hermes jumped back to the original topic, “you put him in a box, asked the daughters of Kekrops to take care of the box and not open it. But they opened it anyway and went cuckoo. And you were mad at their disobedience, so you told them to jump off the Akropolis.”

“Correct”, Athena confirmed. Then her face darkened again. “And now it's your turn. How are you related to those two? Don't tell me you've slept with my servants!”

It was Ares, who answered: “Slept with them – no. Courted them – yeah.”

“Good”, Athena nodded. “Only virgins like myself are allowed to serve me.”

“Speaking of the two”, Hermes piped up, “can you please give them their sanity back?”

The warrior goddess's eyes narrowed. “Why? They had it coming! That's what you get for snooping and disobeying my orders.”

“Pleeeease”, Hermes begged. “We'll carry them far away from Athens and you'll never have to deal with them again! How are we supposed to get lucky with them, if they're insane?”

“Get yourself mistresses that aren't deal-breaking bitches?”, Athena deadpanned.

In that moment the baby kicked in his wrappings and began to whine. She sighed and picked him up.

“I was going to give him nectar and ambrosia, once he became immortal, because that's what I was planning to do. But now that he's mortal like any other human, I don't know what to do!”, the goddess lamented. “I'm the goddess of wisdom, but I'm also a virgin and I can't handle babies for crap!”

Ares frowned: “Yeah, that much is clear. Well, Daddy's Owl, how 'bout ya take some advice from an actual parent, who's got experience in bringin' up kids. First off: you're holdin' him all wrong. Do ya think the baby can hold its big head up by itself?”

Athena cringed and hurried to rearrange her hold.

But the war god just shook his head, came over and guided her arms to show her how to do it right, until she managed to do it to his satisfaction.

“Better. Secondly: he's hungry. He needs mother's milk. I suggest ya find him a nurse, 'cuz the way I see it, you're not the kinda woman to breastfeed a baby.”

“Right!”, Athena huffed. “You two don't happen to know someone, who won't go insane at the sight of him and his snake guardian and who can keep her mouth shut?”

“I could ask my mother”, Hermes proposed, albeit reluctantly. “She is silent, a recluse and has adamantine nerves. And once the nursing period is over, she'll just give him back to you.”

Athena thought for a moment, ere she consented.

“Alright, thank you. Now that this is settled, there is one more thing I have to ask of you, before I cure these two women of their insanity and let you take them away.”

“Whatever ya want”, Ares promised. “If it's in our power, we'll do it.”

Hermes nodded affirmatively.

Athena's face became stern. “I demand the most sacred oath. Ares. Hermes. Swear to me by Gaia, Ouranos and the freezing water that drips from Styx, that you will never tell anyone about this child. And Hermes, I want you to let Maia know, that I expect the same from her.”

The two gods didn't hesitate to swear this solemn oath.

The goddess of wisdom sighed: “I still don't understand what you see in those two. But whatever. A promise is a promise.”

She snapped her finger and the two mortal girls passed out. Really, the things she did for her family!

“There. When they wake up, they'll be sane again. I suppose this is your lucky day, because these two are so fired from my service! So, if they consent to it, couple with them as much as you want. I literally don't care what you do to them, as long as it isn't rape.”

“Of course not. Thank you, Athena”, Hermes smiled politely.

“One more thing!”, Ares requested. “Before we proceed any further, can I hold my nephew?”

Athena tilted her head. “Huh? Uhm, sure.”

With great care the god of terrible war took the baby from his half-sister's arms.

The infant didn't seem frightened of Ares at all, quite the contrary: it giggled and coiled its serpentine lower body around his wrist, when he made silly faces.

“Awww, you're such a big softie! I wish I had a camera!”, Hermes teased.

Athena smirked: “Yes, I never thought I would see that day! Look at that, the little one really likes you!”

“Don't make me stuff you two into the next best volute krater⁴”, Ares warned without turning his gaze from the little one. “I'm sure, I can find one big enough for you both.”

The other two chuckled, but ceased their teasing; they couldn't fight with a baby in the room.

Hermes addressed Athena: “By the way, what's the little one's name? You gave him one, right?”

“But of course”, she confirmed. “His name is Erikhthonios.”

---

1) Potnia - "Lady/Queen/Mistress" 2) Glaukopis - "Bright-eyed/Owl-eyed", an epithet of Athena referring to her bright eyes (which depending on the translation are either grey or blue). 3) In some accounts Athena punishes the crow - which up to that point is her familiar - for either telling the girls what was in the chest or for being an overzealous tell-tale, by turning its feathers black, giving it a croaking voice and banishing it from her company. That doesn't really make sense to me, so I didn't include that version. 4) Volute krater - a big ancient Greek jar, used for wine.

#Greek Mythology #Gaia #Pallas Athena #erichthonius #Hermes #ares #herse #aglauros #a crow #give milk to the half-snake baby #athena is no good at parenting #but she tries okay

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jeannedarkterraguard · 4 years ago

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LiS True Colors Chapter 2 Thoughts:

-So they’re already trying to find someone to blame this on huh? but is there someone to blame?... well yeah actually... multiple people... the first obvious answer would be ethan... because if he didn’t try to go into the mine none of this would have happened... then there’s alex... who told them about ethans plans to go to the mine, leading to them following him... also gabe himself is to blame for just standing there when the rocks began to fall instead of running for cover... and lastly ryan... kinda... i mean he did cut the rope but i’m pretty sure at that point gabe was already dead after that watermelon-sized rock hit him square in the face...

okay all kidding aside this does look like an accident to me... for now...

-aaw steph came to check in on alex... and to the surprise of absolutely nobody i’m already in love with her

-Holy fuck the first two rounds of foosball were really easy and then steph just annihilates me in about 20 seconds in the third game what the hell

-also steph has like no chill... asking if i’m into girls and as soon as i say yes she immediately starts flirting

-washing the dishes has consequences? well yeah, no shit. the consequences being that i will have clean dishes tomorrow... that’s why you wash them...

-jed is just great

-Alright steph i’ll help you with your LARP... but just to be clear i’m doing this for you not for ethan

-So eleanor has alzheimer? well that sucks...

-is it embarassing that i needed to try every possible option before i tried the open-sign in the flower shop? I just thought that would be the last thing you do... you know after you prepared everything... My mom is a florist for fucks sake i know you don’t just come in, open the shop, and then start preparing everything while customers are already there you do that before you open the shop

-oh shit! she doesn’t remember gabe died?!?

-i would lie and say that it was suspicious that she wasn’t at the wake but to be honest... her role in chapter 1 was so small that i forgot she existed...

-“If i could just push him over the edge...” Very poor choice of words there alex i actually thought you wanted to push him off the bridge for a second...

-okay mac is definitely an asshole sure... and he thinks everyone and everthing is watching him at all times for some reason... but he is not responsible for gabes death...

-just for the record: now that i can actually see the ravine in daylight (at least i assume that is where the meeting with ryan takes place) i probably would have crossed that log and i would definitely not have used that rope because this thing doesn’t really look that deep. like maybe 10-15 meters. and there’s water at the bottom... sure it would hurt like crazy but it’s definitely survivable... if you’re not crushed by boulders of course

-is this seriously supposed to be the first time someone felt joy around alex?

-okay using blue and purple for sadness and fear respectively is super confusing they look so similar and i’m honestly not sure what diane felt during that ending

Final Thoughts: A nice chapter but there are some things i’m not entirely convinced by yet. first of all: You can’t just put paw-prints somewhere, let us interact with them, making the character mention that she wants to pet the dog and then... not actually have a dog for us to pet! Oh and also It looks like they’re setting up to have typhon as the antagonist. which would be fine but after LiS1′s Jefferson, Nathan and Victoria, BtS’s Damon, Eliot, and James Amber. and LiS2′s... well i’m sure there was someone there and i would know if i had played it, but i haven’t so... yeah... it doesn’t feel right to have some faceless company as the villain. I did however like that mac has been given the chance to somewhat redeem himself. Nathan and Victoria had to wait until basically the end of the game for that.

Anyway now onto chapter 3...

#Jeanne plays #jeanne plays LiS #LiS #life is strange #life is strange true colors

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kekethegoddessme · 5 years ago

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Teach Me Too Love You

Chapter 6

A/N: Because you asked here's another chapter…

Happy Reading!

For almost an hour Liv sits in the large bedroom thinking. How did she get here? Was she in a dream? Was this Fitzgerald guys serious? She looks around her and realize every bit of it is real. She needed to find a way out. She leaps from the bed and tries the door. To her surprise it's unlocked. She peeks out looking left then right. Not seeing or hearing anything or anyone she runs back towards the living area and right out the front door.

Fitz on the other hand was dealing with a problem. Cyrus being one of them. "Fitz this will be a problem. This will cause conflict with the Banetto family. Zoey is his daughter. She will not take this thing with Olivia laying down and that can ruin the business."

Fitz swiftly turns facing Cyrus "Mind you own business. I run this not you. My personal life is my concern."

Still standing in one spot as Fitz walks away Cyrus tries to reason "I'm doing that you are my business. It's my duty to protect the family and you. Even from yourself."

Fitz pulls out his gun pulling back the clip. For a moment Cyrus thinks he's about to shoot him. "You're going to kill me?" Fitz just looks at him with a blank expression due to the stupidity of the question. Placing the gun back behind him. "Get everyone here and worry about things that concern you. Olivia…doesn't concern you."

Once all Fitz closest men were present, he wasted no time getting down to business. "Someone has been stealing from me. If it's not you then remain quiet, but if you are the one then it's best you speak up and explain to me why when I pay you more money than you've ever made in your entire life only for you to steal from me?"

The men including Tom, Diego, and Cyrus remained silent and that's when it happened. Fitz lifted his gun and shot his biggest distributor Jake in the head…twice. In that same moment Liv was looking for a way out. She saw the entry gate and ran towards it but was stopped in her tracks by the sound of a muffle gunshot and flash. To the right of her as she stepped out into the opening was Fitz holding a smoking gun as a man's body falls to the ground. The site of a man being killed startled her causing Fitz, Tom, Cyrus and Diego to turn in her direction.

Fitz saw it coming before it could happen and started walking in her direction. Just before she hit the concrete pavement she fainted in his arms. "Fuck!" His angered expression spills out

He lifts her and carries her back to her room as his men rid of the dead body. He calls for the maid to change Olivia into sleepwear. He then sits in the chair and waits for her to awaken chastising himself for causing her yet again to faint.

The following morning Liv slowly awakens. Fitz is sitting behind her as she takes a moment to focus and slowly begin to sit up. The moment she turns and looks behind her she hears him. "How are you feeling?" She quickly sits all the way up. "Again, I apologize. You shouldn't have seen that." She drops her head after looking at him with sad eyes "But you have to know that he deserved it. He's been doing unthinkable things Cheating and stealing from his family and me. We don't forgive it. He killed himself with what he had been doing. Some of the thing I don't care to mention but it goes against everything I stand for and since he was part of my organization, I had to take care of him."

Liv still doesn't speak but finally notices her cloths have been removed and replaced with a silk spaghetti strap black nighty. She quickly pulls the comforter up to cover herself feeling exposed.

Fitz notices this "It wasn't me who changed your clothes. It was the maid."

With trembling lips "You have people for everything." She candidly expresses still not looking at him

"It's…It's one of the advantages of being a boss."

Liv finally looks at him then pulls back the covers and places her feet on the floor "Since you're such a boss, tell one of your many servants to bring me my cell phone and laptop."

Fitz jaw clenches as his sits shirtless with only pajama bottoms on in the chair. Enticement is the game, but he's pushes hard to not become frustrated "I can see you've got your strength back." She looks off into the distance "You will have your cell phone and laptop when it's the right time."

Liv internally chastises herself as she tries not to look at his chiseled chest, strong defined arms, and his ripped stomach, legs spread wide and print visibly noticeable, It was all throwing her off. She's supposed to be angry, scared even. Why wasn't she? She just saw him kill a man. His dark, dominant, sexy, mysteriousness was completely turning her on. She needed to bid her time until she found a way out before she ended up spread out wide before this man allowing him to fuck her senseless.

"Now…If you need anything Diego is here to help you." He uses his strong arms to lift himself from the chair allowing them to fall to his side "Be ready in two hours, because we need to buy a few things before we fly out."

With a sense of panic, she nervously pushes her hair behind her ear "Fly out? To where? What-where are you taking me? I'm not flying anywhere unless it back to the US."

Fitz voice drops "It wasn't and offer; It was and order."

"Listen to me Fitzgerald. You can't just drag me from place to place wherever you want without my permission. I am not your property. If this is your idea of how and what falling in love with you looks like your sadly mistaken." She finishes her statement by chest checking him with her finger

He quickly grabs her wrist and she shove him. He grabs her shoulders pushing her onto the bed straddling while trying to control being turned on by her feistiness as she struggles to keep him from pinning her hands down. All the struggling set him between her leg with his print directly on her center. She slaps him for the second time since meeting him and they both pause. She really didn't mean to do it this time and is shocked at her own behavior.

Both have a moment staring into each other's eyes. The moment is undeniable with bated breath they rhythm of her own beating heart. The desire to kiss her, the desire to kiss him is not lost on either of them. The room becomes silent as they are lost in the moment. "Olivia, If you hit me again…"

"What? You will kill me?"

"Is this what you call a temper? How come you're not Italian?"

"How many black girls do you know?"

"It looks like one is all I need to know." He states lifting up off her onto his feet "Look Olivia it will be a good year. I just need to not react so quickly, because I lose my vigilance when I'm around you." He walks towards the door as Liv sits up and watching his every move. Diego brought your things from the hotel. You have a very impressive amount of shoes for a five-day stay."

Liv roles her eyes and looks off as he walks out of the room. Liv finally takes a break as she falls back on the bed. What is wrong with you Olivia. This man is holding you against your will and all you can think about is sleeping with him. She thinks to herself before deciding to get dressed to check out the grounds since it appears this is where she will be staying for the next year.

An hour or so later Liv is dressed and makes her way out back where she sees Fitz standing talking on the phone. Diego and Cyrus are there as well standing next the table with a large spread of fruit bagels cheeses, croissants and many different juices. "Your breakfast is ready Ms." Diego meets her as she made her way past Fitz. He couldn't take his eyes off the red v-cut dress that tied around her neck. It was backless and had a spit for days and earth tone wedges with wrap around leg straps. She was enticing him and he knew it.

Fitz turns and watch her as she walks past him without a word. Cyrus just chuckles to himself before pulling Fitz disappearing inside of the home. Liv takes a seat. "Enjoy your breakfast." Diego encourages

"I think your boss wants me to gain weight. This is too much food for one person."

"I think he just want to take good care of you- you know. Make sure you have everything you need."

"But he said you were here to help me with everything I need, so I need you to sit down and help me to enjoy this food, so I don't have to eat alone." Diego takes a seat and does as he's asked

Liv and Diego enjoyed the platter of food followed by him showing her around the grounds. She learned that he wasn't much of a talker and was very loyal to Fitz. So after about and hour she decided to sit in the outside lounge area and take in the sun giving Diego a break. Within minutes she was asleep.

She woke to Fitz sitting across from her staring at her. "That's really creepy how you're always watching me sleep."

"You're beautiful. What can I say? I've dreamt of moments like this over the last three years but anyway today I have some business to take care of. You will be accompanying me."

"I told you Fitzgerald I wasn't going anywhere with you."

Fitz jaw tightens and he looks at Tom and Diego and nod. Giving them the go ahead to bring the car around. He stands and pulling Liv from her laying position to her feet and makes his way to the front of the home. Liv is like a pouting child being dragged along.

The drive was long, so she just admired the view and continue to pout. Fitz decided to start up a conversation "You know Italy is a place of love. Atna, known also as "Momgibello, 'beautiful mountain." Fitz shared as they drove past the scenery of the mountains. "There's an old legend about Zeus and Typhon and of course love." He continues but Liv has her smirky come back "It bet Typhon didn't fall in love with Zeus in a year of her birthday." It was a statement not a question.

It also caught Fitz off guard that she knew about the legend shutting him down momentarily with a smirk on her face.

"This gets easier Olivia if you just cooperate a bit more here."

"I really don't have a choice now do I?"

Fitz remains quiet the rest of the ride. Liv continues to watch him out of the side of her eye as he admired her dress, legs and yes her. She didn't notice that he too watched her admiration of him.

Twenty minutes later they arrive at their destination. Liv didn't know it, but Fitz was taking her on a shopping spree. Unfortunately, Fitz thought this was a way to her heart. After seeing she had beautiful clothes and shoes he came up with this idea. It was downtown section of Italy and had many expensive shops. They stopped at all of them.

At first Liv refused to try on any of the clothes. She quickly changed her mind because he threatened to remove her clothes for her. After about ten different stops and the security arms filled with boxes and bags of clothes purses jewelry and shoes, they made a final stop in the lingerie store following Fitz as he walked inside. Liv figures what the hell she might as well get this over with but what she didn't expect was Fitz to walk into the dressing room while she modeled the underwear. He completely ignored her in the other shops as she tried on the many dresses and pant's set in all the other stores at least she thought he did.

She had on a black lace bra with straps that crossed over the chest and cheek-less panties with the same design. She immediately felt his presence when he walked in. "Get out Fitzgerald." Fitz looks her up and down as he leans against the mirrored wall. "Get out, or else I—" He cuts her off "Or else what?" Still checking her out

She inhales as she watches him unable to take his eyes off her lower region. She then seductively walks towards him stopping directly in front of him running her finger over his exposed chest where his top buttons where open. "Or else I guarantee you…this will be the last time you'll see it."

Without thinking and feeling a sudden erection from her closeness he steps forward and backs Liv into the opposite mirrored wall and gently palms her neck. "If I order it, I will see it. I decide when I'm going to see it." Liv roles her eyes and pushes his hand from her neck but doesn't move from her position. Fitz looks down at her lower half again before exiting the changing room.

Liv is livid. She quickly removes the garments before her juices expelled from within. Something about the way he placed his hand around her neck aroused her. His dominance turned her on more than she'd like to admit. Why did she not feel like she was in danger with this man? Why did she want to straddle him right there in the dressing room? Why was she playing hard to get?

Here she was being held against her will. No communication with anyone outside of his world. Told that she had to be here for a year before she can choose to leave…and yet she desired this man in the worst way. Yes, she was angry more at herself then him. How is that even possible? How dare he threaten her? Test her boundaries. Push her buttons. Admire her to her face and still manage to turn her on. The irony of it all made her livid. Who did he think he was? Her man.

Liv quickly dresses grabbing the garments she just took off and storms out of the dressing room. She throws them in Fitz face. "See it on yourself!" She growls out before walking out of the store. His security team is about to go after her, but he raises his hand to stop them.

Once outside she looks all around before running away. She ends up on a balcony off the water where she sees two Italian police officers. She runs up to them. "Help please, I need help. I've been kidnapped and being held against my will. I'm American and not from here. Can you help me?

The two officer's look past her and speak to Fitz in Italian saying, "Good morning Mr. Grant." Liv doesn't even have to speak Italian to know what they just said. The officer's walk off and Liv slowly turns to see Fitz standing there looking sexy dressed in all black, almost Italian like with his hands in his pockets. "Are you lost pretty lady?"

He slowly walks towards her "If you plan on running you should where different shoes. Sometime fighting us futile. You just have to accept the situation. The faster, the better for you. You can either make it hard for both of us for the next year, or…take part in an adventure that fate has given you."

"It wasn't fate; it was you."

"Sometimes we have to make our own luck Olivia."

Liv takes a moment to take in what he's said before walking closer to him "Is it true what you said earlier?"

"What did I say earlier?"

Tilting her head to the side "That you won't touch me without my permission?"

"I'm not the monster that you think I am."

She brushes her hair out of her face "I want my cell phone and my laptop. Now…and something normal for dinner…like spaghetti. This is Italy after all…right?" She turns and walks away with a smirk on her face

Fitz has a smirk as well because he knows he has just won round two.

Until next time…Keke

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