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bellamyroselia · 4 years ago

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Who could replace Hades as the new big bad? Overly long essay

Like pretty much everyone else in this fandom, I love Hades. Guy’s your typical pure evil villain with a personality larger than life itself and he’s having so much fun with it that it’s contagious. Every time he pops up, I’m delighted to see him. It’s so fun to see him do his shtick and have the time of his life with it, which also makes beating him feel so great. After all the crap he has put the main cast through, it’s so satisfying to blast him into the face because for a moment that confidence finally breaks and once it's all over, people cheer because they don’t have to live in horrible fear for a while at least. This characterization is mostly rooted on the sheer fear factor Hades had in the eyes of ancient people - even in civilizations which have rather chipper afterlife people tended to prefer living over dying, and this of course meant that they were absolutely terrified of the Underworld deities. Hades was mostly addressed by epithets in texts because people thought that if they called him by his name, they were drawing his attention and the last thing a sane person wants is the attention of an powerful god who has power over the dead. So if a god has this level of appeal, be it positive or negative, you may not even need excessive amount of mythological content to create a frame for a character!

This being said, I don’t believe his chances of coming back are as the big bad of a next game are high - that is unless we have to wait another 15-20 years to get a new game, but I’d like to be more hopeful than that. So if he isn’t coming back, who could possibly replace him as the new big bad of Kid Icarus? It’s not like the writers could ever run out of source material because there’s so many monsters to deal with and every god is more or less morally grey, meaning that there’s many possibilities for new bad guys regardless of the scale.

This took a lot longer than I originally expected and I’m sorry for that - there’s no worse idea than to jump into a rabbit hole and bringing a shovel with you because things will quickly spiral out of control into new interesting directions. The more info I gathered, the more interested I was on looking more into it and sometimes it even spiraled out of mythology into history and philosophy. If you’re interested on some specific reasons for why this took so long, here’s few: myths are long and there’s many different versions of them, epics are even longer, Peloponnese people couldn’t be bothered to write their own things down so I had to look what travelers wrote down, it takes Plato way too long to get into the point, Herodotus never gets into the point, someone translated the term metic as resident alien of all things which I thought was the funniest thing ever and Ludovisi Ares is really pretty.

This is the point where I give the obligatory warnings, so here - since I'm discussing mythology here, it's inevitable that there's some talk about violence and death. I'm not going to linger on the gruesome details, but know that it's there. At couple points this will spiral into a full-on history lesson because I thought that understanding the historical context was important regarding the topic I was discussing. Also this is a one long essay - and by long, I mean really, really long. If you want to read it all at one sitting, prepare some time for yourself. But with that all out of the way, let’s jump straight into the discussion on who could be the next possible big bad, shall we?

I’m limiting this mostly to the main 12 Olympians with the addition of some other big names to keep things simple - while some smaller mythological figures such as Arachne or Arke would work fantastically as villains, they don’t have that recognition or presentation the more well known characters have. We’re trying to speculate who could fill Hades’ shoes as the new main bad guy here after all, not who we could add on the list of great yet less significant antagonists like Medusa, Pandora and Thanatos. I’m excluding Zeus, Athena, Hephaestus and Demeter from this list for rather obvious reasons - Zeus because the the guy seems to be MIA for good so Palutena could rule the place, Athena and Hephaestus because Palutena and Dyntos practically are them and Demeter because Viridi pretty much is Mycenaean Demeter on steroids in a package way too small to contain all that anger within. I also don’t think her relationship with Pit and Palutena will change drastically, so she’s sitting comfortably on her friendenemy-zone.

As for already existing characters, I don’t think anyone of them could snatch the title of the big bad. Viridi is off the competition for already mentioned reasons and I don’t see anyone from Forces of Nature defecting to become the new main villain. Pyrrhon is either gone for good or went back to whatever is this world’s equivalent of Egypt to lick his wounds, so I don’t think he’s coming back anytime soon - and if he’s coming, I don’t think he’s coming back as a main bad guy since he really wasn’t one to begin with. Thanatos’ only major mythological appearance is the myth of Sisyphus capturing death which doesn’t exactly strike confidence on his abilities in general and if that version of Thanatos couldn’t do his job correctly when meeting one guy too stubborn to die, do you really think that I believe our Thanatos has any chances of becoming the new big bad? Bringing back Medusa would be beating a dead horse at this point unless they really twist the formula and I don’t think that’s going to happen, so Medusa is off the competition. Pandora wasn’t all that big of a threat to begin with, so if she comes back she most likely stays that way. So it’s definitely going to be a new character, but who could it be?

As for who for sure can’t replace Hades as the new main bad, it’s Hestia. She probably has the lowest chance of any big Greek god to even appear in a possible future Kid Icarus game simply because there’s next to no material of her and that’s for a good reason. She was the goddess of hearth, domesticity, family, home and state. Most of these were and still are considered private, so that explains why there’s very little material of Hestia actually doing anything - we don’t write epic poetry about cleaning the house, making a macaroni casserole for dinner or going to bathroom and so didn’t the ancient people. With Hestia, you’re dealing with the bare bones of a character because she’s so passive and non-confrontational figure. It would be hard to make her a central figure in any kind of plot, especially for a one centered around action, so she’s out.

Hermes is also a figure I don’t think would work as a big bad or as an antagonist in general and I don’t really have any concrete reasons for why I think so. I just feel that he would be unfit for the role. He’s a trickster who started his shenanigans on the day he was born and the rest is mythology - by cunning escapades and underdog tactics he became the messenger of gods and from that point onward he kept collecting even more jobs such as becoming the god of merchants, shepherds and thieves, being a psychopomp, guiding dreams and helping heroes whenever he felt like it. He has a lot of going on but he’s always regarded as someone who knows all the tricks and isn’t afraid to use them, not all bad for a guy whose name was derived from a word meaning a pile of rocks.

As for why I think Hermes would make an terrible antagonist is mostly because of his status as the god of thieves and how it’s pretty much the easiest way to turn him into an antagonist. The thing here is that I just can’t stand antagonists whose main thing is that they’re amazing thieves and/or tricksters in games. While I think they can be enjoyable in other forms of media if they’re written on a smart way, in games this is almost never the case because gameplay and story don’t always match perfectly and writers need to use cheap tactics to make the character work - and by cheap I mean either A.I stands for artificial incompetence and the character is simply bad at being a thief/trickster despite all the characters and lore saying otherwise or that the game just starts cheating against the player to make them feel dumb even though they did nothing wrong. Thieves and tricksters are just really hard to balance in a game when it’s not the player character doing the deceiving. That perfect sweet spot for a great character is too goddamn tiny and if the thief/trickster isn’t exactly in there, you have an annoying character either because they’re incompetent at their job or because computer is a cheating bastard. So while there’s many enjoyable antagonists who share traits with Hermes, combine them all into a one character with the problems I already mentioned and most of the time you have a figure everybody hates due to how infuriating they’re to deal with. We’re trying to make people interested of going on and seeing what happens next here, not trying to annoy them to the point where they can just drop the game and never pick it up again. As for another reason I don’t think Hermes would work all that well as an antagonist is because his whole shtick is that despite his incredible powers, he still manages to be an underdog. Needless to say, the way underdogs are represented in media is vastly different from the way major antagonists are and while it can work, it’s hard to pull off. And of course there’s the thing of Hermes being portrayed almost always as a positive figure in myths, meaning that I and many others have a hard time imagining him as a bad guy. At his most evil we imagine Hermes doing stuff such as saying to his nephew that grandpa equals target practice, not anything that could threaten the world. Though if Hermes is included into the cast of a future game, I can image him having a theme that sounds similar to the BW rival theme for some reason. It has that I’m a one chipper fella but I’m also extremely busy right now so goodbye for a moment, see you soon-energy in it that I associate with Hermes.

As for what kind of role Hermes could be playing, he could work rather well as a quick cameo like Poseidon was in KI:U, where he offers help in some form. If one wants to go deeper into it, he could possibly run some service since he was the god of merchants and trade as well - though if one want to involve the fact of him being the god of thieves in addition to previously mentioned things, make him an occasional scammer because that’s what one would expect from a trickster. Or have him as a boss in a training gauntlet. Works either way.

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If Artemis was introduced into the series, I don’t think she would be antagonistic. I can totally see her having a cold personality and her being bit of a hard person to deal with, but I don’t see her being actively malicious character - only example of Artemis being overly cruel towards figures KI-characters seem to be based on would be her sending the Calydonian boar to cause chaos in Calydon. It’s interesting if you believe Magnus and Gaol are at least partially inspired by Meleager and Atalanta like I do, but I don’t think it’s enough to make Artemis an antagonist, much less the main villain so she’s off the competition. Not to say she isn't wrathful, I looked into it and her wrath far outnumbers her blessings, though it's rather messy at times and some of them even can't co-exist the ones about Orion and Callisto definitely can't but her wrath is divorced from the main KI-cast. You'd have to create new characters to excuse it and KI already has a rather large cast, so I don't think it would be all that wise to create new characters just for the sake of goddess cursing them for a plot line that's resolved in couple chapters. Maybe she’s just a cameo or possibly a boss in a training gauntlet.

Apollo would be an antagonist. I just don’t see any other way how he could be introduced into the series. He has potential to be a charismatic, funny and mostly harmless antagonist who isn’t there to cause any trouble, he just really hates Pit and only Pit. But why would he hate Pit? It’s not like the mythological Apollo dislikes Icarus or Perseus and that’s indeed true, but there’s one more thing. For a god who we associate with a celestial body mostly made out of hydrogen and helium, Apollo has extremely high levels of sodium chloride within him - which is to say that he has been salty starting from the moment Hermes robbed him that one time and that lake of salt inside him has only become larger ever since. That salt is directed at people he dislikes and while he doesn’t dislike Icarus or Perseus because he never met either of them, guess who he does dislike? Angel-like gods, or just Eros to be more specific.

The story goes that Apollo’s enormous ego took the better of him one day and so he started to mock his nephew for what he thought was mediocre use of the bow and arrow. Insulted Eros decided that Apollo had officially lost his uncle-license which led him to curse Apollo to have the worst love life imaginable, starting with Daphne. And as we all know Cupid is Roman version of Eros and Pit is named after Cupid, so this was hatred made in heaven and it would be disappointing to not use the opportunity when it has been given to us on a golden platter. And you don’t even have to come up with an detailed and intriguing story to explain why Apollo hates him - something could’ve very well happened during the three years Pit’s consciousness was in that ring. His body may have ruined Apollo’s chances to hit it off with people because it was destroying their cities or something similar. Or just leave it as a noodle incident that’s referenced multiple times, everyone wonders what the heck actually happened but only Apollo knows, refusing to tell the story because he just assumes that everyone already knows it and they’re just messing with him by pretending to not know. Either way, Apollo should be an antagonist if he’s featured in a sequel. Not a villain, definitely not the big bad but fun antagonist to deal with.

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This is something that most of you probably already know or at least you would know if you’ve actually read something other than Ovid’s Metamorphoses, or as I like to call it Jaded man screams at Emperor Augustus because apparently telling the Roman citizens to go all out on every monument the prude ever built clearly wasn’t enough, please tell me you have but Medusa isn’t an only child. She’s in fact one of Phorcys and Ceto’s seven children, both of them being somewhat monstrous primordial ocean deities - Phorcys has been described as a merman with red skin and crab claws, Ceto’s name in the other hand just literally means sea monster. Besides Medusa and the two other gorgons Stheno and Euryale, the list of their children includes the graeae sisters, serpentine dragon Ladon and Echidna, which is quite a lot of snake monsters for two deities who themselves don’t have any snake traits. There’s a lot of potential in this group but ideas of any of them becoming the new big bad end up falling apart because just like Medusa, they’re all rather bland characters like you’d expect from a mythological monster. They’re less like characters and more like plot devices that the hero needs to deal with. The only two members of this family besides Medusa who actually get to do something of importance are Ladon and Echidna and even those acts aren’t all that interesting. Echidna gets to have her many monstrous children with Typhon and then she’s apparently is killed by Argus, Hera’s servant-giant while sleeping on a cave just like her sister. Ladon guarded the garden of Hesperides which was well known for its golden apples and he doesn’t get to die with much dignity either, since Heracles just shoots him in the back and literally the next day other Argonauts find nymphs looking at his still twitching body. Alternatively Heracles just tricks Titan Atlas to do all the apple picking, which leaves Ladon alive.

Possibly one of the biggest problems writers have to deal with is setting. Ladon is very strictly tied into the garden setting and Echidna was cave dweller who never left her home, so writers would have to come with rather specific situations for them to appear. Of course if one wants to be lazy, Underworld could possibly serve as their home. It could very well house caves big enough to house a snake monster and Greek Underworld does have Elysium, which is basically Paradise and it could very well also function as a garden. But honestly even with the right setting, I don’t think either of them would make all that interesting big bads. They would definitely work fantastically as large-scale villains, but they don’t really have that much intimidation factor all things considered - you can blame Argus and Heracles for that.

But I’m not done with this family yet as there’s one character connected to them who’s probably the most feared monster of all Greco-Roman mythology and that’s Typhon, Echidna’s mate. He’s essentially an ancient Greek equivalent of a kaiju, more a destructive force of nature than a monster and everyone fears him - and by everyone, I mean everyone. There’s couple of versions of what happens but the most popular one goes that when the gods saw him, their first instinct was to shapeshift into animals and flee into Egypt. Those who did stay behind such as Hades were said to cover in fear in their homes while Typhon ravaged the land. Zeus tried to fight him but when he went for the kill, Typhon caught him and cut off his sinews, then threw him into a cave under the watch of another snake monster Delphyne. This didn’t stop Hermes and Pan from getting the sinews back and saving Zeus, and once his strength has been restored he and Typhon fought once again. Zeus eventually wearied Typhon down and then either casted him down into Tartarus or dropped a mountain on top of him, that being Mount Etna.

He could work very well as a big bad, problem here are just how high the stakes need to be for him to work. He’d had to be the ultimate villain if that was the case, the stakes need to be higher than they were with Hades. And considering how Hades was pretty much your typical pure evil villain causing chaos, what separates Typhon from him? Just some more chaos and no wisecracking dialogue because everyone is too scared to talk? He comes off as way too similar to Hades without all the fun personality. Maybe if KI:U became a KI:U-trilogy he could work as the ultimate big bad of the last game, but I got to say no otherwise. The bar for making him work is already sky-high due to how destructive he is and we don’t want to repeat the plot of Uprising here. So while he definitely can work, maybe save him for later.

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Hera and Poseidon both have potential to be serious antagonistic forces, but I don’t think they have it to be main villains. Hera simply fits the bill because most of the times she’s the antagonistic force actively trying to make people’s lives worse, all because she can’t direct her anger at correct people. Some times she’s just blatantly evil, like how she imprisoned her own daughter Eileithyia or you may better know her as Lucina to prevent the birth of Artemis and Apollo or how she tricked her pregnant great-granddaughter into disintegrating herself Semele is her great-granddaughter by the way. As for examples of Hera being wrathful which don’t involve Zeus being horny, she was said to be the one who sent Sphinx to Thebes, no reason given why or if there’s one, I couldn’t find it. Works either way.

Because she might as well be the personification of divine wrath, it’s pretty easy to see why one would think she would make a great villain. However that wrath also gives us a big problem, it being that her evil escapades are mostly rooted on anger and spite - while wrath is a good driving force for a villain, it needs more to work. With Hades, he does evil things for fun and is having a blast while doing it. Hera on the other hand just rages and most of the times it’s because of Zeus, who seems to be out of the picture. She’s not there to have fun and when you add her general lack of charisma on the top, you don’t end up with the most endearing character. While wrath can serve as a character motivation, it can become stale very quickly and this means that unless the story regarding villainy her is short (as in solved in 1-3 chapters) it starts to feel like dragging. I overall think that Hera does have very low chances to appear in general, but if she does appear as an antagonist she should preferably be a minor one in the same way Viridi was. You know the meme of what makes villain a supervillain and the answer is presentation? Hera doesn’t have that presentation. Writers can certainly just give her that which is what they did with Hades whose mythological counterpart was more or less a basement dweller, but why go trough all that trouble when there’s so many better candidates to work with?

On to Poseidon, who’s an important figure in the founding myth of Athens - it’s honestly quite odd how it’s never mentioned in any shape or form in KI:U despite Palutena being based on Athena. But then again, considering how much “care” this series put on the names of its cities and towns, this being ignored doesn’t really surprise me even if it does disappoint. He was a really big deal during the Mycenaean period, besides being the god of ocean he was also seen as the head god and the ruler of the Underworld. Then the Late Bronze Age collapse happened and Poseidon was nerfed in the lack of better words - during the Dark Age, Zeus became the new head god and Hades popped seemingly out of nowhere, taking over Poseidon’s role as the god ruling the Underworld. On the other news Poseidon’s antagonistic potential is somewhat dwarfed by the fact that most of his escapades involve banging and they don’t really feature any figures the main cast of KI seem to be based on. It’s annoying because he does so much but because it’s mostly banging people and either helping or bullying very specific heroes, it’s just not something that’s all that relevant in the context of KI. But there’s couple myths and stories that would make him an easy bad guy, first one is that of Atlantis - and we’re going to jump straight to the source material because on it’s core, it’s technically just another tale of Athena and Poseidon having a conflict. Fish people under the sea is fun as well, but by using the source directly it gives us the most potential.

So Plato tells in his dialogues Timaeus and Critias that when Athenian statesman Solon visited Egypt, he found some interesting records about certain events during 10th millennium BCE and translated them into Greek. Only thing here that’s true is Solon visiting Egypt, everything else was made up Plato - if you need more proof, know that 10th millennium BCE was during the stone age for context, Britain wasn’t sharing a land border with just France, but also with Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and Denmark during this time. It was that far into the past. As for the actual story, it begins by gods choosing lots of land for themselves and Poseidon chooses Atlantis. He then falls in love with a mortal woman Cleito, builds her a luxurious home, they have five sets of twin boys together and once the kids have all grown up, they divide Atlantis into ten parts and so is born ten different lineages of kings. But by each generation the kings become more and more human, meaning that it’s much more easier for their wealthy lifestyle to hit them in the head - compare that to Athenians in the story, who’re not tempted by luxuries and have quite Spartan lifestyle interestingly enough. This wealthy lifestyle of the Atlanteans quickly leads into colonialism and war mongering, leading into them trying to take over the Mediterranean but they’re are stopped by Athens because naval warfare was the only type of warfare Athenians actually excelled at. Zeus eventually looks down to see what the heck is going on and then tells Poseidon to do something because this racket is technically speaking all his fault. Poseidon agrees, causes an earthquake and then sweeps Atlantis under his rug, that being the ocean. So Atlantis is pretty much an antithesis of a perfect society, a concept that’s discussed more in Republic and the lesson here is that being consumed by hubris in the search of luxury leads to ruin - but since we’re not here for philosophy lessons, let’s forget all of that and think what kind of plot one could craft out of this mess.

Island nation in search of wealth is a good set-up for some action, so I don’t think there’s much that needs changing. Have Atlanteans attack some cities which alerts Palutena and that leads Pit into a mission in which he tries to tell Poseidon what’s going on. After 2-5 chapters of war against Atlanteans, Poseidon deals with the problem either willingly or by force - whether he just destroys the place or makes Atlanteans full on aquatic folk who can’t survive on land meaning that they have to give up the conquest is up to writers. It’s honestly quite refreshing to have the original tale working so well, because usually everything related to Atlantis in media is so divorced from what Plato told. Sure, a submerged city full of fish people could still work but by using the original tale as base we get a story with clear beginning and end which makes perfect sense in context of KI. Or maybe have the a plotline inspired by the original story first and then later have something related to the submerged city with the fish people. Best of both worlds, amazing!

Also orichalcum, the metal Atlanteans were said to have aplenty, is pretty much just copper. Reddish metal and only gold is more valuable than it, it couldn't be anything else but copper. The term even translates into mountain copper! So why is it never portrayed as copper in fiction?

Besides Atlantis, Poseidon has couple other myths I’d like to talk about too. The first one has him and Apollo losing their divine authority for a while and as punishment they have to serve Trojan king Laomedon father of king Priam and grandfather of Hector among some others if you’re wondering. The king makes them to build the legendary walls of Troy and he promises them great rewards, but once he doesn’t deliver them Apollo sends the plague upon Troy and then Poseidon sends a sea monster to terrorize the place Heracles kills it if you’re wondering. There’s also certain another situation which I’ve actually already talked about on a different post and how with little shaking it could work nicely on a future game - what I said was that Pit should do something Poseidon is going to hate to the point that the god is screaming for his head and that he wants to settle things on court.

The myth I used as reference was that of the supposed first trial in history, in which Ares kills Poseidon’s son Halirrhothius for assaulting his daughter and Poseidon loses his marbles over it. The gods gathered on Areopagus which is a real place in Athens, fun fact and I’ve heard two versions of how the trial goes. In the first version everyone agrees that Ares’ actions were justified and in the second one gods side with Poseidon, but goddesses side with Ares and since there was more goddesses present than gods, their words mattered more. Either way, Poseidon loses the trial and Ares gets away scot-free.

Were a future KI-game do their own twist with this myth, Pit would obviously take the role of Ares. Besides the fact that we’re trying to make Poseidon more antagonistic, Pit just being on a situation similar as Ares makes sense thematically speaking and I’m going to talk more about this later since it’s rather interesting. As for why the trial happens in the first place, it could very well be over anything. Maybe mix it with the one where Poseidon sends a sea monster to terrorize Troy just replace Troy with some unimportant city as this series always does and he’s so attached to it that seeing it getting slayed deeply saddens and angers him. You don’t even need to get rid of the idea that it was over a girl, even if the motive for killing the monster is changed along with what kind of relationship the girl could possibly have with the main cast. This is something I’ll get back into later because there’s in fact one other character who I’d like to talk about and how their most cruel and personal form of villainy happens to bound to a certain girl.

So back to Hera and Poseidon. There’s definitely potential for them to be antagonistic, but I’d say they would work much better as arc villains rather than as the main bad guy. There’s only so many things you can do with characters whose actions are rooted on anger or wrath, especially when they don’t have all that striking personalities.

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As for someone who could well work as the big bad, Dionysus is the first serious candidate. It’s partially due to how inconsistent his characterization has been, which I guess is something one should expect from a figure who has been around since the Mycenaean times and who happens to be the god of insanity, vegetation, orchards, fruit, grape-harvest, winemaking and wine. Does this sound like someone you’d expect to be a member of Forces of Nature? Because it sure does for me and I’d honestly be surprised if he wasn’t one if he was introduced to the franchise.

Symbolism behind Dionysus’ birth is pretty neat, my favorite version of it is the one written down by Diodorus of Sicily in Bibliotheca Historica and in that one Demeter is his mother. It starts the usual way in which the poor kid is killed shortly after his birth by Titans and Demeter comes back just in time to gather his remains to allow his rebirth shortly after. It references the harvest process and wine making - the god wine is born from the union of rain and earth just any plant is, he’s torn apart and boiled alive symbolizing the harvesting and wine-making process, his remains represent the fallen bare vines which become fertilizer for the earth and lastly wine itself is supposed symbolize the now reborn Dionysus. All of the versions of his birth myth do have this symbolism to a certain degree but I’d say this version has it the strongest because unlike his other the mother candidates, Demeter is a nature goddess first and foremost and also the goddess of agriculture.

This next point is somewhat tied to the previous one which is that he actually has valid reasons for his absence, that being his meanderings. Long story short - Hera’s angry over the fact that he exists, she injects him with madness and he wanders around like a madman for a while, then Rhea cures said madness and tells him to go on a journey so he could teach people how to make wine. So he goes and wanders around the world with the exception of Britain and Ethiopia for some reason teaching people the art of winemaking and does some other things in the meanwhile, such as apparently founding a city it’s told that on his campaign Alexander the Great came across a city that was supposedly founded by Dionysus. And this is a fun fact, apparently Dionysus’ popularity exploding around late 4th century BCE can be directly linked into Alexander, which is pretty neat. Once he comes back home he firmly establishes his place as a god and then he starts doing shenanigans much more familiar to us, such as giving king Midas his golden touch and marrying Ariadne.

So why do I think Dionysus is the first real contender for a possible new big bad? Well, do you know what’s the first thing he did once he came back to Greece? According to Bacchae, he brainwashed a city to worship him, caused an earthquake, set a palace on fire, gleefully watched when his worshipers teared a man into pieces and then turned some other people into serpents. Now that’s an entrance Viridi would be proud of!

Besides this, there’s also two similar stories in which Dionysus meets some pirates and they both show him as an unhinged god. They capture him and in the first one Dionysus shapeshifts into a lion and unleashes a bear against his captors, causing the scared pirates to abandon the ship and then Dionysus turns them into dolphins. In the other one he turns the mast and oars into snakes, fills the ship with ivy and the sound of flutes to make the pirates go mad and once again when they abandon the ship, Dionysus turns them into dolphins. The tale of him giving Midas his golden touch could also count as him being antagonistic since the act gives Midas nothing but suffering. So while he is much more friendly towards humans than your average god, Dionysus definitely has an antagonistic flare deep inside him and a place in the Forces of Nature and you can’t change my mind.

If Dionysus was a major antagonist or the big bad, I could see the plot going a lot like this - he comes home, causes some racket because he feels neglected, Viridi is happy about all of this and tries to control it while keeping him on this state of mind because who wants a happy party guy when you can have a chaotic deity, for a while she can do it but not for long before things snowball out of control and he becomes an unhinged god dead set on causing chaos. As for how he’s defeated, I can’t really come up with anything concrete on a fly but I don’t think Dionysus would be defeated the same way Hades was. And while he has the personality and presentation needed for a main antagonist, I just can’t see him as a pure evil villain like Hades was. He’s very much redeemable in my eyes and as for what happens to him after his defeat, I could see it leading to him mellowing down kind of like how Greek wine was watered down before it was used for anything - he’s still part of Forces of Nature and perfectly capable of doing all the same stuff he did as a major antagonist, but he would prefer partying with humans over destroying them. Viridi probably isn’t going to be all too happy about this, but it’s not like she’s going to be all that angry about it either.

Also fun fact at the end - in Dionysiaca, Ariadne laments if Eros and Anteros hate her because she had amazing dream about a wedding, only for Theseus to piss off and abandon her on Naxos. But as we all know, she would soon meet Dionysus who she does end up marrying so hey, the dream just wasn’t about the guy she thought she would marry. So if Dionysus isn’t going to be the big bad and the arc devoted to his villainy is relatively short, this could very well be used as a blueprint for a funny side story. Ariadne lamenting about Eros and Anteros would give Pit and Dark Pit valid reasons to be there.

This is not a joke, by the way. The part of Underworld which wasn't either Elysium or Tartarus was commonly referred as "the House of Hades" in ancient texts.

As for someone else who could also work quite well as the big bad, that would be Persephone. You all know the drill with her - Hades takes her, Demeter panics and goes to search her, she causes the Mediterranean summer on the meanwhile and does a thing which looks awful without context Demeter sets a baby on fire which is supposed to make him immortal if you’re wondering, everyone else decides that enough is enough because endless Mediterranean summer is a nightmare, they beg for Hades to give her back and he does that but not before the pomegranate trick. Demeter causes Mediterranean winter to come, the trouble is solved, we have a nice functional couple in our hands and they continue to appear together when Underworld is relevant to the plot - which surprisingly isn’t all that often as only Adonis, Heracles, Theseus who loses his arse and friend in the process, Orpheus who loses his wife and will to live in the process, Odysseys, Psyche and Aeneas managed to go to Underworld and back. That’s not really all that much all things considered.

And before anyone says anything about seasons here - Mediterranean climate is a thing and it’s best known for its hot, dry summers and mild, wet winters. One of these is much more preferable for plant life and in this case, it’s not summer. The more you know.

While there’s not much material of her when compared some other people in this list, I’d say there’s enough to create a frame for a character. In both Theogony and Iliad Persephone is described as dreaded and in Odyssey Odysseus assumes Persephone is the one sending ghosts to torture him while he’s visiting the Underworld. Just like Hades she has her fair share of vague epithets like Despoina (mistress) and Kore (maiden), presumably for the same reason as to avoid getting her attention. And while the etymology behind her actual name is rather muddied, the popular theories are that it means something in the vain of to destroy, to bring/cause death and she who brings destruction. And people have the gall to say she isn’t scary!

With this info and Hades’ characterization from KI:U in mind, you could very easily create a powerful pure evil villain who’s not going to be happy to learn what happened to her husband. As for why I believe she would be pure evil instead of redeemable one like Dionysus, it’s simply so she and Hades would match on their villainy. Considering how the big thing about Hades and Persephone is that they genuinely love each other to the point of possessiveness Pirithous and Minthe learned it the hard way, it would be weird if they hadn’t rubbed on each other during the time they were together. There’s an amazing chance for drama here and it would be dumb to ignore it when it has been given to us on a golden platter. And besides, unholy matrimonies are quite fun in fiction. Villains too have something they love.

As for attempts of villainy that don’t revolve around her being antsy at Pit about Hades, we interestingly need to look at the list of those she granted favors rather than those that had to deal with her wrath - or just one of them in particular, Psyche. As I’ve already mentioned she was one of those mortals who managed to go to Underworld and back and to make things better, she went to Underworld specifically so she could speak to Persephone. Persephone greets her with a nice cushion to sit on and a banquet, which Psyche declines because it’s a trap this is practically just the pomegranate trick on a larger scale. She tells why she came into the Underworld in the first place and Persephone fulfills her request, which is to say that she gives Psyche boxed death.

Coming to Underworld to speak to Persephone in particular definitely gives Psyche an edge compared to others when it comes to exploring Persephone’s potential villainy. But just why is Psyche such a big deal when compared to someone else like Orpheus, Adonis or Aeneas? Well, Psyche just happens to be the girl who would become the goddess of soul, a job that isn’t currently filled by anyone in KI-universe which Hades has kindly illustrated to us in KI:U by eating and repurposing souls for his own purposes. She’s also Eros’ wife with the addition of being the mother of his daughter and as we all know at this point, Pit is mostly inspired by Eros. While Persephone just being angry about her husband’s treatment makes a perfectly fine motivation, why not use the chance when it has been represented to us on a golden platter? Because while KI has a large cast of characters, most them are quite divorced from one another when it comes to their mythological counterparts interacting with each other. This subverts it since Persephone actually gets to interact with someone important to the figure Pit’s inspired of, which is more than almost anyone else in this list can say. The opportunity is there and there’s an open position for a new god, so why not take it?

Also if Persephone is going to be in a future game, I say I’m going to be so disappointed if there's not at least one pun about her epithet Kore. Like imagine if she was introduced on a chapter called Lost Kore or something similar and then the characters would just continue on making bad puns, annoying her. Wouldn’t be too out of line when it comes to this series humor.

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I know what I’m going to say next is probably going to be controversial, but anyway - if Ares ever makes an appearance, I don’t think he would be a bad guy and this is mostly due to how Pit has been characterized. I know that may sound weird at first but trust me, I do actually have a point with this.

So let’s start with something that may seem completely unrelated at first, these being a history lesson and some talk about over-demonization. We honestly don’t know much about how some city states worshiped gods and what specific versions of the myths they had because some people just couldn’t be bothered to write things down. Besides it being extremely annoying for me, this is also probably where the misconception of all of ancient Greece being either like Athens or Sparta came from, which just is completely false. However what is correct is that city states didn’t really like one another all that much and often engaged on stupid wars with each other, only uniting when there was a much bigger threat looming on the horizon - and with war comes propaganda and when only some people write things down, we’re usually left with really one-sided information when it comes to both good and bad. For one example of this coming off as hilariously hypocritical to me is Athena being worshiped under the epithet Areia in Athens. Areia is very obviously derived from Ares and means warlike, but Athenians had their heads so far in their arses that they came up with a reasoning that this version of the epithet is actually derived from areô or areskô, meaning to propriate or atone for. It’s most likely just some crap Athenians came up with to excuse the worship of Athena Areia, which I just can’t help but find pathetically funny - you can only blame your own propaganda for this, guys.

Historically speaking Ares most likely originates from Thrace since besides his popularity in there Herodotus notes in Histories that only gods from Olympian Pantheon that Thracians worshiped were Ares, Artemis and Dionysus, a really odd trio if I have to say so myself, it’s also said to be his birthplace in the myths. His name can be found on Linear B scripts, a writing system that goes as far back as 1450 BCE and which disappeared during the Late Bronze Age collapse around 1100 BCE. This informs us that he was part of the Mycenaean Pantheon in some way, most likely even then as a war god - it also informs us that he predates gods such as Apollo, Hades and Aphrodite who just don’t exist in Mycenaean texts at least in any recognizable forms. As for Ares during the Archaic, Classical and Hellenic period, especially when it came to places that weren’t either Athens/Attica or Sparta, I had to mostly rely on travelers who wrote things they saw down because some people just didn’t bother to write their own stuff down. Pausanias’ Description of Greece was especially helpful with the research, but what must be remembered is that he lived during 2nd century CE and that he was an outsider to these cultural aspects so how old some of this stuff here is and what the exact context behind it was, I don’t know and neither do others at least currently, one sure can hope so we know more in the future. Then again past is another country so maybe I'm setting my hopes way too high. When given anything in Linear A, people channel their best "I never learned how to read!"-impression.

As for how Ares’ Roman counterpart Mars came to be, it’s mostly due to syncretization. He probably was originally an agricultural god who was later associated with warfare once the Roman Republic started expanding. It’s possible that he was syncretized with an Etruscan deity called Maris, who was usually portrayed as a young boy whose caregiver was Menrva, a goddess who was later identified with Athena and Minerva. While this isn’t an universally agreed take, it’s still pretty interesting in context of Kid Icarus even if it wasn’t intentional or in the case of the take, true. Once Romans started to interact with Greek settlers from Magna Graecia Mars was syncretized with Ares, giving us the Roman god that looks familiar to us. One notable thing to keep in mind is that most of those Greek settlers in Magna Graecia originated from Peloponnese and what I’ve managed to find, they held Ares on much more higher regard than those originating from Attica did.

Okay, now when that has been cleaned out of the way, let’s go to the slightly more interesting stuff which is cult titles and epithets. Just like any other god he has his fair share of both, some examples include Teichesipletes (stormer of cities/walls), Hippius (horseman, of the horses), Theritas (beastly/brutish), Enyalius (warlike), Obrimus (strong/mighty), Thurus (violent/furious), Chrysopelex (of the golden helm) and Chalcocorustes (armed with bronze). I’m using Latin spelling of these to make things easier for myself if you’re wondering. But there’s two titles I specifically want to talk about, both them originating from Arcadia around Tegea because apparently all the cool stuff happens in Arcadia.

Interestingly also in Tegea there was a temple of Athena under epithet Alea. Pausanias tells that her priest there was a boy who held the title until he reached puberty, meaning that her priest was a child. Now this has nothing to do with Ares, but it’s pretty interesting when thinking of Pit. It’s not exactly same for sure, but could this mean that he would leave Palutena if he ever grew up?

The first one is Gynaecothoenas, meaning “Feasted by women” - and no need to worry, it’s nowhere near as sexual as it sounds. The story goes that Tegeteans were at war with Sparta and what decided the victory was an ambush by Tegetean women. Because of this, they offered Ares a sacrifice and celebrated the victory alone. The king of the Spartans at the time was said to be Charilaus, meaning that this victory must have happened around early-to-mid 8th century BCE, making this rather old cult title by the time Pausanias was writing. If only the research for everything else here could’ve been as easy as this.

The other and much more interesting title was Aphneius, meaning “Abundant” and under this title he was worshiped as the giver of food or abundance. The story behind this title goes that Ares fell in love with Tegetean princess Aerope and they had a child together, but she died during childbirth. Ares, doing his damndest to keep his son alive, managed to find a way for the baby to still have milk. Once he grew up, his son Aeropus then managed to do the thing that’s near impossible for a demigod, which is to live a normal life as the lord of Tegea. Now this would make a great character backstory…

… What was I talking about again? Oh yeah, history lesson is over! Finally! Now into the fun stuff, which is Pit’s characterization. It’s pretty common knowledge at this point that that Pit’s inspirations are Icarus, Perseus and Eros but when it comes to his characterization, Eros definitely takes the cake as the main inspiration. He is a fully realized character with multiple myths under his wing, unlike Icarus or Perseus.

Starting with Icarus, he isn’t even a character but a plot device. He’s a tool for Daedalus’ character development and that’s where his importance ends. He’s a miniscule part on a much larger narrative in which the most important part is the Minotaur, as it drives the plot for everything else in it. Icarus’ death serves to drive Daedalus’ character to the point which eventually leads into him killing Minos. He exists for a metaphor that pop-culture has blown out to be way more important than it originally was and that’s it.

As for Perseus… The guy is just really bland. While all the other heroes have their flaws like hubris and wrath, Perseus doesn’t really have any flaws. He doesn’t have that many achievements in either bravery or stupidity due to his method of dealing with things being the quickest way possible. This makes all of his battles extremely boring and because he’s one of the first demigod heroes in the mythological timeline, he doesn’t even get to interact with anyone who could be interesting. How many of you even know that he’s supposed be the founding hero of Mycenae? Not many, I’m sure about that. The most interesting thing about the guy his that he’s an ancestor to people such as Tyndareus, Alcheme, Heracles, Penelope and Telemachus but this doesn’t save him from being any less boring. He's that famous ancestor nobody gives a damn, so to speak. Pit certainly doesn’t get any part of his personality from a plot device or a blank of wood, only a literary reference and an antagonist.

Also can I quickly rant about the Angels in art vs. Angels in Bible meme because I hate it? For some reason most of times when people show art of these supposed angels, they aren’t even showing biblical angels but Erotes/Amores or Nike/Victoria instead. Erotes/Amores and Nike/Victoria are winged Greco-Roman gods, not biblical angels and using art of them proves absolutely nothing. Also you may have forgotten that there’s in fact hierarchy of angels and not all of them look identical. In Christian faith angelic hierarchy is composed of three orders, there being nine different kinds of angels - Seraphim, Cherubim, Ophanim/Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels and Angels. Seraphim and Cherubim do indeed look terrifying and so do Ophanim, but Thrones are just bizarre because apparently they’re elderly carrying God’s throne, whatever that means also I’ve seen people use Ophanim and Thrones interchangeably which just makes the whole deal even bigger of a mess. And then there’s Dominions, who’re just really pretty winged people, proving that the idea of all biblical angels looking terrifying is completely false. I couldn’t find what Virtues looked like, but if they’re anything like Powers, Principalities, Archangels and Angels they’re most likely pretty winged humanoids. So yeah, surprising amount of biblical angels are indeed just pretty winged humanoids and only the highest order of them is clearly inhuman - so if you ever wondered why so many angels in art actually featuring Biblical angels have them looking so humanlike, now you know! It's not the highest rank's job to interact with the human world. Though in modern language, the term angel is simply used as an umbrella term which refers into a winged humanoid being regardless of which religion they originated from - so by using this as a frame, it would indeed make Erotes/Amores and Nike/Victoria angels along with some other winged gods such as Eos and Iris. This would also make Iris’ twin sister Arke a fallen angel because as punishment for siding with the Titans during Titanomachy, she was casted into Tartarus and her wings were ripped off so she could never escape from there. And then much later her wings are given as a wedding gift to Achilles’ parents, my god! You could actually a craft a plot out of this, hmmm. When it comes Pit and Dark Pit, I do think they’re angels only on this broad, modern way definition due to them being mostly inspired by the Greco-Roman Erotes/Amores and it’s possible that they’re only referred as angels because not only is the term Erotes/Amores is strictly associated with Aphrodite and only Aphrodite, it's also much more specialized term than just "angel". There has also been cases in art featuring multiple Nikes, but Nike's special role as the goddess of victory still prevents its use as a broad term. So I believe that in the case of KI, angel is just an useful umbrella term and nothing more.

So Pit’s mostly an Eros-expy when it comes to his personality and attributes, so what makes him so special when compared to many other Eros-expies in media? It’s actually a surprisingly small thing, but boy does it make a difference - on a thematic sense, Pit’s a total daddy’s boy and in this case the dad would be Ares. Most of the Eros-expies you see in media are completely divorced from anything related to Ares despite the guy being Eros’ dad but not in Kid Icarus, where we have a very blatant Eros-expy whose connections to his main mythological inspiration come almost exclusively from Ares. Just why is Pit doing Nike’s job? Because Nike happens to be Ares’ daughter according to some sources, like in the Homeric hymn dedicated to him. Why’s he a soldier in an army? Because Ares was a soldier and in some parts of Greece he was seen as a model of a perfect one who’s resilient and has physical strength that isn’t matched by anyone else. Apparently in Sparta they even had a statue of shacked Ares, supposedly as an attempt to keep the martial spirit and victory in Sparta I don’t know about you but for me this sounds like a very bad move, as if they were asking for the god’s wrath. Then again Athenians did the same thing with wingless Nike, so I guess it was fine in some twisted way. Why does Dark Pit exist? Because would you know it, there’s myth in which Ares and Aphrodite spot lonely little Eros and decide to create Anteros to be his brother, their only differences being hair, wings and weapons of choice Anteros has longer hair, plumed butterfly wings, golden club and lead arrows when compared to Eros' golden bow + both golden and lead arrows. Why does Magnus possibly being based on Meleager matter? Because would you know it, the dude’s sometimes a son of Ares. Why did he spend three years trapped inside a ring? It could parallel the tale of Ares and the giants, in which he spent a lunar year trapped inside a jar. Why does a dog help him during that section? It could still very well be reference Ares and the giants as Hermes and Artemis came to save him and one of Artemis’ sacred animals is a dog and Hermes is the god guard dogs. Also one of Ares’ sacred animals is dog as well, meaning that it could reference this as well. Honestly if Pit ends up having a divine parent and it’s not Ares, I call bullcrap.

So now when that has been made clear, what can writers do with Ares? Well if you take the myth of Poseidon wanting to settle things on court and give it to Pit, you end up losing one of his three major myths in which he’s wrathful towards someone odd I know, you’d probably expect a god of war to be much more wrathful but no, he’s not. The two ones that are left don’t really give all that great material either because in the first one, the target is Adonis and whether it even was Ares’ wrath that killed him is left open - in some versions it’s Artemis who wants him dead because she’s angry at Aphrodite for causing the situation which lead to the death of her hunter Hippolytus, sometimes it’s Apollo who still hasn’t forgiven Aphrodite for blinding his son Erymanthus, occasionally it’s Persephone of all people because she’s angry at Adonis for wanting so spend time with Aphrodite and at times it’s just an accident this all makes me think it was an elaborate coup. There’s always a reason for a divine being to be angry at Aphrodite because she just can’t help but cause trouble whenever she can. When it comes to the second one, it’s honestly pretty odd because not only does Ares forgive the man who originally was the target of his wrath, it illustrates how good of a parent he is on Olympian standards not that it’s a high bar but anyway - even better than the lady whose favorite boytoy he is, and she’s well known for being an overprotective parent.

The myth starts with this lad called Cadmus, who founds the city of Thebes, becomes its king and then kills a dragon residing on a nearby spring. Ares is furious about this since the dragon was sacred to him and apparently it’s sometimes his son, don't know how that works and as punishment, Cadmus has to serve Ares for eight years he got it easy when compared to Adonis and Halirrhothius. Once that service is over, Cadmus marries one of the two daughters of Ares and Aphrodite, this being Harmonia, the goddess of harmony. However not everything is all sunshine and rainbows because Hephaestus is still salty about how his marriage with Aphrodite went south and once he hears about a wedding, he prepares two gifts for the bride - first one was a beautiful necklace that could keep its wearer eternally youthful and the other one was a luxurious robe. But there was a catch, since both of these objects were cursed to bring bad luck to those who owned them. The bad luck eventually took its take on Cadmus’ mental state and one day he remarked that if gods fancied those serpents so much, maybe his life would be so much better as one. Gods fulfill this wish, he’s turned into a serpent and once Harmonia notices what has happened, she wishes the same. At one point Dionysus comes to the city, trashes the place and then gives them a propechy of this happening. Either way, Ares comes down to get the unlucky couple and then scoots them to safety in paradise-like Elysium, where they get to reside from now on.

You may already be familiar with this myth to a certain degree because Pokemon B/W could technically count as an adaptation of it. N is of course the most obvious parallel due to him getting his second name from Harmonia and Ghetsis takes a role comparable to Hephaestus. It all becomes even funnier because Harmonia hits some characteristics associated with yin - she’s passive, feminine figure who represents harmony which can only exist due to lack of action, an idea. It gains even more hilarity points thanks to existence of Adrestia, Harmonia’s sister and the goddess of revolt - she’s pretty much yang to Harmonia’s yin and to make things even more hilarious, she was often portrayed as a beautiful winged maiden. Now who would expect the goddess of revolt to be a lovely winged lady and the goddess of harmony to be at least momentarily a serpent?

While this is indeed an interesting myth, I don’t think it would make all great material for future KI-game, at least on its current form. The cast of KI doesn’t really get to interact with humans on a personal level, which is something this myth largely relies on. Honestly, I think the best way it could be referenced in game would be just Pit going to Elysium and meeting Harmonia still trapped on a draconic form. Considering the way Hades had been characterized in KI:U, it wouldn’t surprise me if he had just kept trapped Harmonia as a pet lizard in his garden. Maybe say something on the vain of him eating the husband’s soul or using it for something else to explain why she’s there all by herself. And if you want to make fun of the fact that the fourth wall might as well not exist, throw Adrestia in Elysium as well as a dragon as a nod to Pokemon. “The Twin Dragonesses of Elysium” sounds like it would make a very cool boss fight.

So a wrath or blessing, Ares gives us not much to work with either of those at least when it comes to him actually doing stuff - but that doesn’t mean we’re left with nothing because there’s three myths that I’ve glossed over quickly that could give us something, one just for comedy and two others actual plot. As for the one that’s just for comedy, it’s the one in which Sisyphus captures Thanatos. Ares is actually the one to save Thanatos from the tough situation since after it has continued for a month, he bursts into Sisyphus’ house, frees Thanatos and drags Sisyphus’ spirit to the Underworld… Only for him to come up with a sad story, which leads into Persephone letting him go only for it to backfire. Ares then disappears from the story, but it ends up with Sisyphus doing P.E for eternity in Tartarus once he dies for real as you all already know. This is pretty funny if a bit morbid myth, so it could be really easy to use it as a comedy goldmine if Ares ever interacted with Thanatos. Maybe have Thanatos trying to act like they’re friends, only for Ares to become more and more frustrated the longer Thanatos continues. Maybe once he mentions some of his escapades involving Pit, Ares finally decides that enough is enough and shows to Thanatos that mortals don’t call him by the name Thurus for nothing.

To the myths you could get some serious plot out of, the first one is very predictably the one in which he earns the title Aphneius. It just has everything a great character backstory needs on its original form, meaning that it could easily be inserted on the game with minimal changes and it could still work fantastically. It has a romance between a god and a mortal which ends up on a tragedy during a moment that was supposed to be joyous not because of any divine whim or I guess it could’ve been Aphrodite being salty because she has a habit of releasing her wrath upon Ares’ loved ones or relatives, usually grandchildren such as Hippolytus, but I think it would’ve been written down had the story actually said it was Aphrodite behind Aerope’s death, but because of something beyond their control. And instead of taking his frustrations on the baby like so many fathers in these stories do, he instead does everything to keep him alive and so Aeropus grows up to be fine ruler, if an unremarkable demigod. A writer could easily use Aeropus as a base for an interesting heroic character… And I guess you can already see where this is going. I already said that Ares would make the most sense as Pit’s divine parent if he indeed has one, so this would make an excellent backstory if that was the case.

I could see the timeline going something like this if this was true - Ares meets KI-universe’s equivalent of Aerope, the two have an adorable romance and are expecting a kid but something goes horribly wrong and Aerope dies, instead of letting Aerope’s family to take care of the kid Ares takes the baby with him because who knows what they would do to a winged baby so many myths have families abandoning their kids for dumber reasons than this so why wouldn’t he take the kid with him + this dude had 3-6 winged kids, one all by himself, so he definitely is the one hogging all the wing genes instead of Aphrodite, he tries single parenting but it’s hard when certain goddess is constantly shooting stinkeyes and paralyzing glares at his direction and it leads into him asking help from Palutena because a winged kid wouldn’t look too out of place among her angel minions. Considering how Palutena and Poseidon were capable of having a conversation in KI:U without any horrible atrocities being committed, I don’t think it’s too far-fetched to imagine her relationship with Ares being along your typical sibling-relationship rather than what Atheanians wrote down Ares and Athena were actually worshiped together in the town of Olympia under titles Hippius and Hippias, fun fact. You could also see it as a favor inspired by how Menrva took care of Maris. Anyway, this deal goes swimmingly for a while until the events of a certain other myth take place, which makes Palutena the sole caregiver of Pit - some unspecified amount of time later que the events of the original Kid Icarus and onward.

Fanfic time over, now to the other myth which could explain Ares’ absence - it’s the one about him and the giants. Long story short, there’s these two giants called Ephialtes (derived from the word meaning nightmare) and Otus (either derived from the word meaning insatiate, doom or horned owl) who’re sons of Poseidon because of course they are, goddammit Poseidon and a mortal woman Iphimedeia, they’re also called by the name Aloadae. They were planning to storm into Olympus to kidnap some wives for themselves, Otus wanting Artemis and Ephialtes wanting Hera what great choices, you complete imbeciles, absolutely amazing. So one day Olympians are surprised to find these two giants piling up mountains on top one another and as expected, there’s a big fight between them because no one comes to the Olympian home turf without facing the consequences. Once the two giants finally leave, the Olympians notice that someone is missing, that being Ares. Ephialtes and Otus probably realized way too late that kidnapping the god of war wasn’t the brightest idea and because letting him go wasn’t an option, they locked him inside bronze jar of which he tried to break out without success. It took around a lunar year for the giants stepmother to rat this out to Hermes, who went to save Ares with Artemis. While she distracted the giants and made them throw their spears at each other, Hermes lockpicked Ares out of the jar and so the three returned to Olympus.

So how could this myth be used while crafting a plot for a future game? I’d say it depends on whether writers want to use Ares as a full-blown good guy from the start or as an antagonist at first - and while I do still believe that Ares wouldn’t be a bad guy on his own free will, who said he’s going to burst out of that jar with that free will still intact? It’s not like we haven’t seen brainwashed antagonists in the series before, Gaol was a one.

So if we have Ares as an antagonist who’s brainwashed and crazy, how could the possible plot be handled? I could see it starting with the two giants resurfacing for something trivial but because they’re being destructive, it catches the attention of Palutena who sends Pit down to deal with them. The giants are dealt with in 1-3 chapters and one way or another Pit finds a large jar and breaks it, releasing the crazed Ares. Neither side recognizes each other and there’s possibly a boss fight which ends with Ares leaving and him becoming a wandering antagonist who causes racket when someone angers him. He most likely isn’t connected to any other antagonist or the main villain, but I could see them trying to recruit him without any success. As for how he was brainwashed in the first place, it could be the Aloadae wanting to get some use out of their prisoner and they decided to make him into an indestructible living weapon either to themselves or someone else - maybe it even was commissioned by the big bad because who wouldn’t want an powerful living weapon who’s loyal to you and only you. Either way it proves fruitless as Pit frees Ares from the mind control and slowly but surely he starts to establish himself as a good guy and an ally to Pit and Palutena.

This would actually go pretty well along with a certain another thing about Ares, that being helmet and symbolism connected to it - you see, mythological Ares was often portrayed to have something I like to call Meta Knight-syndrome. He was said to be a beautiful man with a lovely face, apparently much more prettier than any other male Olympian which could possibly explain why he’s Aphrodite’s favorite boytoy and he wasn’t particularly proud of it - just what kind of self-respecting enemy would take you seriously if you have a face of an angel? But that didn’t stop people from drawing or sculpting him without a helmet, and the result were indeed pretty my goodness is Ludovisi Ares a one beautiful sculpture. Just considering how the art we see of Ares can be categorized into him either with or without a helmet, writers could easily craft a narrative out of this - while wearing a helmet he’s under mind control and once freed he fights helmetless, allowing player to see him as who he really is. Helmet obscuring the face equals bad guy and once it cracks, we can have a very confused ally who cries over the fact that his baby is a big boy now, cries some more because there’s two of them now, may or may not join us to missions if there’s a two-player mode for story or just help with training and also maybe cracks dad jokes few times because humor is a valid coping mechanism. This all kind of reminds me how one other popular trend relating to Ares in art was to have him disarmed with young Eros playing with his armor. Cute!

Somewhat relating to the idea of Ares starting as a brainwashed antagonist turned ally once the helmet is smashed, I could see him having two different themes which illustrate the different natures of him. First one should be something brooding and terrifying, maybe something similar to Gustav Holst’s Mars, the Bringer of War which a really great piece of classical music that has inspired composers all around the world, even at Nintendo. If you haven’t heard it, you certainly have heard at least one song inspired by it metal genre can thank its existence on Mars, no kidding. As for the other theme, I think it should be a warm, calm and welcoming one with a hint of sadness, a complete opposite of the battle theme when it comes to the first expression. I’ve been recently listening a lot of TSFH and Hans Zimmer so if I had to say what kind of energy I’d want this possible theme to have, I’d probably say something between TSFH’s Friendship To Last from the demonstration album Nemesis, Final Days of Rome from album Unleashed and Now we are free from Gladiator. They all have this bittersweet yet beautiful feeling in them I love. Maybe there’s a shared leitmotif or something between the two themes connecting them into each other. Thurus and Aphneius were both titles for the same god after all, even if they were about wildly different aspects of him.

So just like with Apollo, I think there’s only one way to bring Ares into the franchise and in this case it would be making him Pit’s dad. It just makes way too much sense to me considering how Pit has been characterized that it would be odd if there wasn’t any connection between the two. And there’s even couple out-of-universe reasons why I don’t believe he would be the bad guy, the first and most notable being that the names Ares and Mars are already associated with morally righteous characters or at least characters we’re supposed to root for in Nintendo games. Sakurai certainly knows this, Marth has been in Super Smash Bros since Melee as a playable character and his name just blatantly is Mars in Japanese and his English name is just the Japanese way of saying Mars. You don’t bastardize the face of another franchise in your own one, especially if you’re both exclusives to the same company and the other franchise is much more bigger and important than yours is.

Since it would be hard to introduce Ares into the franchise, I would be completely fine with him not being featured in next game at all even though I would find it extremely disappointing. But if you’re not going to have him, at least have a reference to him in form of a weapon like Blade of Ares or Blade of Mars because would you know it, the legendary sword of Attila was also known as the sword of Mars. We’re probably never going to get actual swords in KI but blade has been used as a synonym for them, so there being a blade with said name could work just fine. That or finally add spear and shield combo into the game. But if you want to use the character who would work as the big bad the best into their fullest, maybe it would be a good idea to have Ares as well... All roads may lead to Rome, but not to the arms of Genetrix in this case.

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Call me crazy, but I think that Aphrodite would make the perfect big bad. Does she have that charisma and personality comparable to Hades? Yes she does, and unlike him she had all that in real life - one of her titles was Pandemos, quite literally meaning “of the people”. This made her extremely popular among people regardless who they were or where they lived, and how can you blame them since there’s not many people whom things such as beauty, love and sex don’t matter in some shape or form. Only Olympian who really matched her when it came to popularity was Zeus, but considering how he was the king of all gods it was to be expected that he’d outrank her on the popularity board. She was the most popular goddess in Greece by a longshot and that was also true for Venus in Rome, even if Mars took the place as the second most popular god after Jupiter. Due to her being the mother of Roman founding hero Aeneas, she was viewed as the mother of all Rome and it was used by people as a way to climb up the political ladder. The Julio-Claudian dynasty claimed to descend from her through Aeneas and it didn’t stop there - you can actually trace the ancestry of multiple mythological European figures all the way back to her! Some notable examples of this include Bladud/Blaiddyd, Leir of Britain, Goneril, Regan, Cordelia of Britain and supposedly even king Arthur himself last one is a bit iffy, but all the others are concrete, Aphrodite just flat out is their ancestor through Aeneas. She definitely has the charisma and presentation needed for a big bad because you simply couldn’t be able to pull of any of the previously mentioned things without them and if she could do it in real life, who says she couldn’t do it in a fictional world?

Pretty much only thing about Aphrodite that stays constant is her popularity because in the myths, her characterization is wildly inconsistent - I guess that something one should expect from a goddess who rules over matters such as beauty and love, two things one can never truly understand. However with that being said, there’s trends that stay with her regardless her ever-changing personality. She’s technically speaking an outsider to the Olympian family tree as her most popular and possibly the oldest one as well birth story has her as the motherless child of Ouranos, emerging fully formed from seafoam. Hestia, Hades, Demeter, Poseidon, Hera and Zeus form the first generation of Olympians and Ares, Athena, Hephaestus, Artemis, Apollo, Hermes and Dionysus are principal members of the second generation. By adding Eileithyia, Persephone and Hebe into the mix you get the main Olympian family, making Aphrodite feel like even more of an outsider. She only starts to fit among the family when the third generation is added and speaking of said generation, part of it forms her attendants. The two most important ones are her sons Eros and Anteros, love and love requited, whom she let’s to do pretty much all they want as long as they stay loyal to her. However once that loyalty shifts, she can be quite cruel towards them which is illustrated in the myth of Eros and Psyche quite well - and I’m going to let Aphrodite herself to do all the talking, so here’s a quote from from Apuleius’ The Golden Ass:

‘This is a fine state of affairs, just what one would expect from a child of mine, from a decent man like you! First of all you trampled underfoot the instructions of your mother--or I should say your employer--and you refused to humble my personal enemy with a vile love-liaison; and then, mark you, a mere boy of tender years, you hugged her close in your wanton, stunted embraces! You wanted me to have to cope with my enemy as a daughter-in-law! You take too much for granted, you good-for-nothing, loathsome seducer! You think of yourself as my only noble heir, and you imagine that I'm now too old to bear another. Just realize that I'll get another son, one far better than you. In fact I'll rub your nose in it further. I'll adopt one of my young slaves, and make him a present of these wings and torches of yours, the bow and arrows, and all the rest of my paraphernalia which I did not entrust to you to be misused like this. None of the cost of kitting you out came from your father's estate.’

Let’s file that under yikes. She’s saying this to her injured child and it’s about a girl he loves more than anything but she can’t stand her. And it’s not like Aphrodite dislikes her for any valid reasons, it’s all because Psyche is pretty and Aphrodite took it as a personal attack. This temperament is a stable with her, be the fuss she causes either positive or negative. It goes well in the line of the idea that she was never a child and was born fully formed, as it’s pretty hard to learn those important childhood life lessons as an adult. And do you want to know the best part about this mess? After this massive rant she’s confronted by Hera and Demeter, two goddesses who in all intents and purposes should understand what she’s feeling right now and guess what they do? They call Aphrodite a hypocrite in her face because that’s exactly what she is. Why is she so angry at her child for growing up and experiencing romantic love for the first time when she spends most of her time either being in love or making others fall in love?

Let’s leave the sad lovers behind for a while and talk about Aphrodite in some other myths. There’s not many myths about her that don’t feature romance or sex in some form, but those few are usually about her competitive nature. There’s a myth about Hermes and Aphrodite participating on funeral games yes, this was a real tradition organized by Apollo and she won, her prize being a zither which she later gave to Paris. There’s also a myth about her and Athena having a weaving competition which ended on her losing miserably because as one might expect, challenging the goddess of weaving into a weaving competition couldn’t possibly end well. But since these kind of myths are about things out of her assignments, there isn’t many of them. Most of them are about her helping people with their relationship problems, some examples could be her giving Galatea life on Pygmalion’s wishes and gifting Hippomenes the three golden apples so he could win the race for Atalanta’s heart. But it’s also really easy to earn her anger, some notable immortals who were victims of her wrath are the titan goddess of dawn Eos (she didn’t want to share Ares so she cursed Eos to feel uncontrollable desire towards a new man every day), the titan god of sun Helios (he ratted out her relationship with Ares so she cursed him to forget everyone he ever loved romantically and then made him fall in love with princess Leucothoe - it ends badly and that’s how we got heliotropes), the muse Calliope (Aphrodite saw Zeus asking her help for covering the whole deal about who gets to keep Adonis as a personal attack and so she cursed her son Orpheus to have a horrible death in the hands of Dionysus’ worshipers - interestingly enough this has nothing to do with the fact that Calliope did also sleep with Ares or that she married Oeagrus who’s sometimes said to be Ares’ son, which would make Orpheus his grandson), a minor ocean deity Nerites (he refused to follow her into the land so she turned him into a shrimp) and Pan (Aphrodite and this handsome lad Acheilus had a beauty competition and Pan was the judge - he said Acheilus was prettier so Aphrodite turned the poor lad into into a hideous shark-creature and then cursed Pan to be hopelessly in love with the nymph Echo, the very same Echo who had her eyes on Narcissus). It could even be said that her blessings aren’t going to last for long and by using Hippomenes as an example once again, we learn that in one version of the story she turned him into a lion all because he didn’t pay his respects back to her soon enough. Guileful Aphrodite indeed.

Due to her temperament and general lack of caring about the consequences of her actions, Aphrodite has earned the ire of many gods - just look no further than Adonis, there’s four possible culprits who could’ve caused his death. Because of their contradictory natures, she’s often portrayed as not getting along with Hestia, Athena and Artemis and while there’s not much material for Hestia there’s multiple myths of Aphrodite causing unpleasant situations for Artemis and her hunters, Hippolytus being the shining example of this. The judgement of Paris establishes her relationship with Hera and Athena as a rocky one and the Trojan war has them full-on enemies on opposite sides, Athena even telling the Greek Diomedes during the war that he should avoid fighting literally any god with the exception of Aphrodite - it leads into him throwing a spear at Aphrodite, piercing her wrist and this leads into Aphrodite cursing Diomedes in return. Also in some records such as Cypria Helen’s mother is stated to be the goddess Nemesis, so add her into the list of gods Aphrodite has angered so it turns out the goddess who truly was Nemesis’ enemy was never the one from Blue Sea Star but rather the one who represented Morning Star, how ironic. Her relationship with the male Olympians are a bit better but not always, in fact she has no meaningful one with Apollo at all. Her marriage with Hephaestus was an unhappy one and only after they divorced were they both allowed to be happy, Hephaestus by marrying Aglaea and having a family with her and Aphrodite by continuing her many affairs without any worries. She did scorn Zeus when he tried to get it on with her, but otherwise there’s not much either good or bad blood between them. Besides Ares, Aphrodite did find both Poseidon and Dionysus handsome and had affairs with them, but it’s unclear if they resulted any children - Rhodos has Telchine Halia and Amphitrite as her other mother candidates, Peitho is almost always said to be a child of Tethys and Oceanus instead, the Charites were more often said to be children of Zeus and Oceanid Eurynome rather than Aphrodite’s and Priapus just has no parents set in stone because no telling was seemingly more popular than others. The birth myth of Hermaphroditus starts with Aphrodite telling Hermes to piss off because he doesn’t come even close to her standards, so he asks little help from Zeus to get what he wants and therefore I can’t imagine them having a positive relationship because of this. And after reading so many myths in which Aphrodite targets Ares’ grandkids for whatever reasons, I’m starting to think that he should start running away and quickly. Maybe she really did kill Aerope.

Now returning to the love story with a happy ending which has the most famous victim of Aphrodite’s wrath, Eros and Psyche. It begins in a town with no name given oh, so this isn’t completely baseless in KI where princess Psyche (meaning either soul or breath of life) is having trouble socializing - the people have declared that she’s as if not more beautiful than Aphrodite and they have started worshiping her, denying normal human interaction from her. This obviously pisses off Aphrodite because it has been established that she has the self-control skills comparable to a toddler and so she orders her son Eros to make Psyche to fall in love with something hideous. While he agrees to do the deed, once he sees the beautiful Psyche he can’t help but to fall in love with her and then he chooses to defy his mother, crafting a plan on what to do next. In the meanwhile the loneliness is making Psyche miserable and that doesn’t go unnoticed by her parents, so they go to visit the oracle of Apollo for help. Considering how Apollo is still very much salty at Eros for cursing him to have the worst love life imaginable, his words aren’t all that comforting (another quote from The Golden Ass):

‘Adorn this girl, O king, for wedlock dread, and set her on a lofty mountain-rock. Renounce all hope that one of mortal stock can be your son-in-law, for she shall wed a fierce, barbaric, snake-like monster. He, flitting on wings aloft, makes all things smart, plaguing each moving thing with torch and dart. Why, Jupiter himself must fearful be. The other gods for him their terror show, and rivers shudder, and the dark realms below.’

She and her parents are obviously horrified by this, but they do as they were told to and Psyche is left alone on a cliffside where the god of west wind Zephyrus picks her up. He brings her into a lovely meadow where she takes a refreshing nap and after she wakes up, she sees a beautiful palace and goes in. She’s charmed by the looks of the place and then a disembodied voice tells her that she will be provided by many invisible servants while living in there. Once night falls she’s nervous to meet her husband, but after the first meeting she starts looking forward on their nights together. This continues for quite some time, but in the meanwhile Psyche’s family is starting to get worried about her and she’s in return worrying about them. Eros promises that her sisters can come to visit, but also tells her that she shouldn’t listen them if they sound jealous. Psyche agrees and Eros gets Zephyrus to scoot the sisters down to visit, but as expected the sisters get jealous really quickly and start to make her worry if what the oracle told about her husband was indeed true - what finally broke the camels back was the sisters suggesting that he’s planning to kill her and their unborn child. So when the next night falls, she has prepared herself a lamp and dagger to see if her husband really is a monster - once she draws the lamp near and sees that he’s in fact Eros himself, she’s awestruck and accidentally stabs herself with one of his arrows, making her fall for him even harder. But while admiring him some oil spills from the lamp on Eros, causing him to wake up and leave. Earlier in the story Psyche had said that she’d much rather die than throw this marriage away and she’s willing to live by that statement, so she goes to search Eros and atonement - meanwhile Aphrodite is beating her son in the head by talking how horrible child he is for daring to fall in love and then she imprisons him Genetrix knows nothing in this case. Hera and Demeter call her a hypocrite, which doesn’t ease her anger in the slightest.

Psyche eventually finds her way into a temple of Aphrodite and she calls her two servants to beat the poor girl to make herself feel better. After having a good laugh over Psyche’s suffering, she gives her another beating herself and then dumbs different kinds of grains on the ground, saying that she should sort them by night if she ever wants to see Eros again. Sometimes prompted by him, ants nearby take pity on Psyche and help her - predictably Aphrodite isn’t all too happy about this and she comes up with a much more deadlier task. By morning she tells her that she should get some golden fleece from the sheep living on a grove across nearby river. This disheartens Psyche because she knows gathering the fleas directly is a suicide mission, but she’s consulted by local river deity who tells her how the sheep behave and that instead of approaching the sheep at all she should just collect fleas caught on foliage. She does as was told and Aphrodite becomes even more enraged, telling her to go gather water from river Styx. While she finds her way to Styx without much hassle, she’s overwhelmed by the hopelessness of the situation - luckily for her everyone has come to the conclusion that Aphrodite is being horrible and Zeus sends one of his eagles to help Psyche to get the water.

At this point Aphrodite’s patience is running thin and she gives Psyche a box, tells her to go into Underworld to get a part of Persephone’s beauty and come back with it because this whole deal of torturing her little daughter-in-law has been so hard for her and she needs to look good while going to the divine theatre. After being consulted by a tower on how to actually get into the Underworld without dying, she does as was told and and it doesn’t take long for her to be greeted by Persephone. After refusing to fall into an obvious trap, Psyche told her why she was visiting her and Persephone agreed to help her without hassle - but after returning into the mortal world, Psyche’s curiosity took the better of her and she wanted to see that beauty herself. Turns out it was Stygian sleep fancy words for boxed death and Psyche drops on the ground like a rock, but at this point Eros has escaped his imprisonment goes straight to her. He draws the sleep back into the box, gently pricks her with an arrow to wake her up, the two have a heartfelt reunion and Eros brings Psyche to Olympus, asking Zeus if the two can now get properly married. Everyone agrees, Zeus tells Aphrodite to stfu and they give Psyche ambrosia, making her the goddess of soul. The two have a glorious wedding and some time after it Psyche gives birth to their daughter, either named Hedone or Volupta(s) depends if it’s a Greek or Roman telling the story, the personification of pleasure, joy and delight. I personally prefer the name Volupta, it rhymes much more nicer with rest of the family.

And since we’re at here, that gorgeous painting by John William Waterhouse that everyone thinks has Pandora wearing a pink dress? It’s actually Psyche opening the deathly beauty box. Don’t believe me? Just check Psyche opening the golden box and you see who’s right. He however did create an equally pretty painting about Pandora though.

So now when the story time finally over, what can we do with all of this info? Well, it does tell how perfect of an antagonist Aphrodite makes for an Eros-expy. She has power over him and isn’t afraid of abusing it when she feels betrayed. Compare this to the tales of Icarus and Perseus which really don’t have a main antagonists - Icarus has no personal stakes in the story because he’s a plot device rather than a character and from Daedalus’ point of view, the main antagonist is Minos but mythology doesn’t really treat him as all that horrible person. After he died he became one of the judges of the Underworld and probably sent Daedalus to Tartarus once he died, which illustrates a one seriously big missed opportunity which should’ve been used if Icarus truly was that important inspiration for Pit. Instead it just makes it even more clear how irrelevant Icarus and the narrative about the Minotaur are to KI. As for Perseus, I already talked about how Medusa is a mcguffin while alive and the other ones aren’t much better. Polydectes, Phineus and Acrisius are all dealt with so quickly that they don’t really matter - his only fight that isn’t solved by a handwave is against Cetus and it’s just a sea monster sent to kill Andromeda by Poseidon. Poseidon’s antagonistic potential is a topic I’ve already discussed and the already mentioned possible fusion of the myths of Poseidon sending a sea monster to harass Troy and Ares’ trial covers the idea of Pit saving a girl from a sea monster which is bit funny because in the former one, oracle tells that king Laomedon should let it eat his daughter Hesione to get rid of the monster, so that doesn’t really add anything new here. But with Aphrodite as the big bad it could be rather easy to craft two different but overlapping plotlines, one with a main goal and the other with a personal one. Aphrodite always was Eros’ biggest personal antagonist who treated him as a trophy child and didn’t take it well when he stepped out of the line - how dare her little doll grow up, behave like a man and then decide that he wants to move on to build a family of his own, which now takes the priority over her? Him choosing Psyche over his mother is his defining myth, with the addition of it being the myth in which he finally gains the respect of the other gods. Besides having its message about heart and soul being capable feeling and creating joy while together, it also functions as a coming of age story for its main couple - and when those stories have an antagonist, things tend get really personal.

So going back to those possible two plotlines and goals, what could they possibly be about? I’d say that the main plot line shouldn’t really be based on any myth but instead it should take advantage of her popularity among ancient people, more so when it comes to Venus and Rome. Even as a city, Rome was massive - by the time of 1st century CE it had reached the population of million people, being the first city in history to do that. And this was only the capital of the empire! Rome wasn’t build in a day indeed. Venus wasn’t worshiped by the thousands, her popularity was in the millions during this time period. That’s a lot of power for one goddess and as we all know, too much power can easily hit one in the head - especially when remembering that we’re dealing with a Pantheon composed entirely of manchildren. Give Aphrodite an empire that looks up to her, doesn’t do anything without a last world from her and you’re set with a supervillain who has it all from power to personality. In this case, the reason why Aphrodite should be stopped is that she’s a conqueror who rules by fear, saying that if she was ever abandoned she would curse them and take away all the blessings she has ever granted, leading her empire to ruin. If you want to make her feel even more villainous, don’t even give her an army of her own like Hades and Viridi had but make her use the people of the empire she rules over. There’s nothing more evil than using people who look up to you for protection for your own selfish goals. What those selfish goals may be, writers can be creative with them - maybe she wants to be viewed as the supreme goddess above everyone else, maybe she wants everyone to worship her and isn’t afraid to use extreme measures to get what she wants, maybe she wants to wipe out everyone who could be a threat to her, everything goes. Considering her role on the judgement of Paris, her causing a war or chaos for selfish reasons isn’t out of character. But whatever her reasons may be, there’s going to sparks in the air and fights of massive proportions. Ares may be Pit’s father but Aphrodite definitely isn’t his mother, so she’s not going to show him any sympathy or kindness if he gets in the way of her plans.

This would be the plotline that’s more on the background and focused on Aphrodite’s relationships with Palutena, possibly Ares and the other gods, the main goal is their goal. It’s why they want her defeated. If Palutena is anything like Athena, she can’t get along with her and she understands that allowing Aphrodite to do whatever she wants will have catastrophic consequences even if she herself couldn’t care less about those. If Ares was featured on a future game along with Aphrodite, their relationship would probably be focused on how they feel betrayed by each other. The myth of her cursing Eos illustrates how she sees their relationship open only from her end so she’s very likely still angry at him for leaving her, be it for Aerope or something else entirely. If you want to go with the depressing idea of her being the one who ordered Aloadae to kidnap him, she probably feels even more betrayed because even under mind control he didn’t come back to her like she had anticipated. And if it’s indeed her favorite ex-boytoy’s son with some other lady who has been foiling her plans, her blood quite possibly starts to boil. Ares’ feelings of betrayal would likely stem from Aphrodite trying to kill his child for no other reason than sheer pettiness, along with orchestrating his kidnapping and torture just so she could get her boytoy back. Other gods probably want her stopped for similar reasons as Palutena, maybe with some selfishness rippled in - the consequences of her actions are hurting them and because she doesn’t care, something must be done to stop her. For example, Viridi could possibly oppose Aphrodite because she doesn’t care about how she’s hurting nature on her attempts to viewed as the supreme goddess. Not to say that Pit doesn’t also care about this goal since he’s an empathetic youngster, but I think that the more personal plotline should be his and it’s goal his main motivator during the story.

As for the plotline with the more personal goal, the myth of Eros and Psyche makes the perfect outline for it. Aphrodite is already the main antagonist of the tale, so there’s no need for any massive changes when it comes to her jealousy and want to dispose Psyche. The tasks she gives to her could also be mostly unchanged, if adjusted with something that makes gameplay more immersive assuming we would get to play as her like we got to play as Dark Pit in chapter 22 in KI:U. However what needs to changed is Aphrodite’s relationship with Pit, how he and Psyche first meet and how their relationship is evolves from that point onward since following the myth to a T isn’t an option in this case. I could see Pit and Psyche’s first meeting being a result of Aphrodite’s wrath manifesting on a relatively harmless way, meaning that she already knows about this new, pretty princess that challenges her status as the supreme goddess and she’s not having any of it. As for how her wrath could manifest, it could be a your garden-variety monster attack in the first chapter disguised as someone else’s troops so no one would suspect it was her behind it. The sheer weirdness of it could catch Palutena’s attention so she sends Pit down to investigate it and to get rid of the monsters. While getting rid of them, he meets Psyche in one way or another - maybe she’s trying to escape from them or she’s trying to fight against them, either way Pit comes to her aid and they befriend each other. Maybe she’s featured on a few following chapters as minor character doing something on the background, giving them more possibilities to interact and become better friends - in these chapters Apollo could possibly be introduced along with reintroducing Poseidon, to foreshadow the roles they would play later on. What side plots would these chapters have, it could anything - maybe Pit meets Ares for the first time at this point of the story, but he’s not freed from mind control just yet.

At this point Aphrodite could be getting more angrier but she doesn’t want to out herself as the main villain yet, so she crafts a plan that would eventually lead into Poseidon hating Pit into the point of him wanting to take things into the court. Maybe she tricks Poseidon and Apollo into becoming mad at Psyche’s home city for whatever reason, like how they got angry at Troy in mythology proper. If this was the case, I think that she would keep Poseidon in the dark while letting Apollo fully know what’s going on - if Poseidon doesn’t know the true reason why Aphrodite wanted his sea monster to terrorize the city and why it was killed, he would be much more enraged when it happens. I’ve already established reasons as for why Apollo would dislike Pit, so he probably wouldn’t really need any prompting to cause Pit suffering since he’d still want some payback from that embarrassing noodle incident. So Poseidon sends his sea monster to terrorize the coastline and once citizens start asking help from the gods, Apollo lets the hate flow through him and offers nothing useful - instead he tells them to take the Hesione/Andromeda-approach and let it eat someone to calm it down oh look, it’s a reference to Perseus that’s not about Medusa for once, nice. In this case, it would be Psyche and Pit’s of course not going to let his friend die so he goes to save her, be it with or without Palutena’s approval. In my head I did imagine this as a chapter that would work amazingly with multiplayer, starting with Pit and Dark Pit distracting the monster, then Pit freeing Psyche and them setting out to kill the monster before it causes more harm. Player 2 would have to deal with changing characters on the fly but if Pittoo and Psyche had similar weapons, I don’t think it would be too distracting since they’d be playable on different parts of the chapter. But once the monster has finally been defeated, the joy is cut short by Poseidon interrupting and wanting vengeance for what happened to his monster, ending the chapter. The plot would immediately catch on the next one and what I could see happening on this chapter is that Pit’s taken into the court by Poseidon and he’s not allowed to have anyone defending him, but Dark Pit and Psyche go into his defense anyway Pittoo being the playable character. After a long and treacherous journey they find they way to the divine courthouse and tell their point of view on the events, which gives Pit the sympathy of the court and he gets away scot-free. Poseidon and Apollo may face on consequences at this point and they may even rat Aphrodite out on a subtle way, but the main group doesn’t catch it.

The following few chapters would be breathers before the plot kicks in again, Aphrodite ousting herself as the big bad in one way or another. Maybe she has sent her troops to attack some place, possibly in search for Ares since he would make a great ally on this brainwashed state. Much to her dismay he declines her offers, he and Pit fight and the helmet is smashed, but Palutena recalls Pit before anything can come out of it. The fight continues for couple following chapters, Palutena and Aphrodite are gradually getting more and more mad at each other and maybe she comes down to face Pit herself because the little brat getting on her way is starting to be really annoying now this would make a pretty cool unwinnable boss fight, but Ares comes just in time save him - que silent, cold anger between them, confusion from Pit and Palutena’s end with some extremely awkward reunions and explanations.

What could follow from here is another set more lighter chapters focused less on Aphrodite’s plans to become the supreme goddess and more of the cast getting to know each other better - Palutena and Ares reconnecting, Ares trying to form a meaningful relationship with Pit and Dark Pit, Pit and Psyche becoming better friends, etc etc. Not to say Aphrodite has given up on her plans - she’s still doing things on the background, but it’s implied that what little chaos she currently causes is serving as distraction to hide her bigger plans. Persephone could possibly be introduced at this point of the story, making it clear that she knows about the events of KI:U and that she’s going to get her payback on what happened to Hades in one way or another, possibly drop an implication that she’s working together with Aphrodite. But since everything good comes to an end and so do the breather episodes, plot would go on with Aphrodite kidnapping Pit and getting Persephone to throw him into some dark part of the Underworld, maybe even to Tartarus. And now we get into the fun part of the myth, Psyche’s four tasks!

I could see the plot separating into two directions from here on, first one being Pit’s great prison escape from wherever Persephone threw him into and the second one being the titular four tasks. The prison escape is more focused on traversing the Underworld and Pit trying get out of there while Persephone throws all kinds of obstacles at him - maybe it ends with a ghost gauntlet, since Odyssey illustrated that she can summon ghosts. Arke would make a pretty great boss fight here as well, since she could be classified as a fallen angel. Maybe her motive for going after Pit is to get his wings for herself as a mean to escape, since her own ones were ripped off as punishment for siding with the Titans. But since Pit’s a brave boy, this isn’t enough to stop him and he eventually finds his way out so there could be reunion and a final battle against Persephone.

While Pit’s great prison break is going on, Aphrodite makes an empty promise to rest of the cast that she can give Pit back, with some conditions - but just like in the myth, all she actually wants is Psyche’s death so the danger factor is amped up to eleven. I honestly don’t know how the one about sorting grains could be handled I guess it could work as a puzzle chapter, but the rest work rather well without massive changes. The one about gathering te golden fleas could now take a more direct approach, the one about getting Styx’s water is now missing the helpful eagle and the Underworld trip is largely same with the exception of Persephone not being cooperative. This would be the point where the two plotlines merge together and they take Persephone down together before leaving from the Underworld. Psyche falling for Stygian sleep in this version is up to debate, I say it could work either way. It mostly depends on when she’s going to wake up - if it’s too early it might as well not matter, if it’s after the final battle I’d say that’s too late.

As one might expect Pit’s escape makes Aphrodite furious and she challenges him into a one final battle - that brat has stolen her favorite boytoy from her, satisfaction of getting rid of the annoying princess and also her chances to become the supreme goddess way too many times, she has reached her third-act breakdown and at this point she has nothing left to lose anymore. Ares isn’t going to come back to her, Psyche is not going to die and the people under her empire have started to become less dependent of her, the last thing she can do is get rid the troublesome kid that brought her into this situation. Of course Pit ends up winning, sending the goddess to Aether to hang with Hades where they can now together sulk over the fact that they got defeated by an angel. Pit triumphantly returns to Skyworld where Palutena and others have been waiting, there’s a joyful reunion between all of them and if one wants to follow the original myth at this point, Psyche could gain divinity or immortality for her bravery for standing against Aphrodite as a mere mortal. People have become immortals for dumber reasons in Greco-Roman mythology, so at least Psyche doesn’t become immortal merely because one god thought she was pretty. Have some little banter at the end between the cast and then credits can finally roll in.

When thinking of some nice bonus content, maybe there could be a secret ending player can unlock after beating all the chapters on a certain difficulty, which confirms that everyone is doing well. If we have to deal with another long hiatus that could last for decade or two or eternity, best the game can offer is closure. Pit doesn’t have to a married man with a daughter, but at least show that he’s doing well and ready for a new adventure or that he has had many of those under his belt at this point. All one can do is hope at this point that there will be a new adventure or a happy ending that ties all the loose ends together. Praise Volupta, maybe one day dreams can come true.

______

Welp, this turned out to be much more longer and heavier than I originally expected! If nothing else, that would make an interesting fanfic. Anyway, I think I made my point clear - Aphrodite has everything a big bad needs from power to personality and motives to harass the already existing KI-cast. Even if you don’t want to go with the ideas I came up with, there’s so many myths to use and modify in which she could fill the role of the main villain. And just because there’s heavy themes it doesn’t mean it has to be without humor - I mean, there’s a lot of heavy implications in KI:U yet the game still manages to be a comedy gold mine despite those heavy implications. Writers just need to know when to be serious and when levity is needed, good pacing is something that every great story needs. For some reason I could definitely see there being a gag in which Pandora has regained her true form, only for Aphrodite to snatch it away because Pandora was living on borrowed beauty anyway and she’d like to have it back.

Though I must say that I’m proud of all of these plot bunnies I came up with. It was a fun journey to me to research, overthink, adapt and mix myths while trying to imagine who could be the next possible big bad and what the plotline relating to their villainy could be. And I came out wiser from it, so I really can’t be angry over it even if it took so me so much longer than I originally planned. I never thought that me wanting to write about a Nintendo game would make me read this much about history and philosophy yet here I am. Also now when I’m thinking of it, that last one would tie a lot of threads nicely together if they had a plotline like it on a future game - Poseidon gets to be an antagonist, Apollo gets to be an antagonist, Persephone gets to be an antagonist and Aphrodite gets to be the villain. It’s so nice when things work out this well together! Dionysus is left out though, but I guess it’s not all that bad because having too many antagonists would make the plot feel overly complicated.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my thoughts of who could replace Hades as the big bad. You can’t change my mind on Aphrodite being the best possible candidate but if you disagree with me, who do you think it could be? I’m always open for discussion so feel free to talk with me. Now there’s only one question remaining on my head - if a future Kid Icarus game had Arachne, would she be a jorōgumo?

#kid icarus #kid icarus uprising #ki #kiu #pit #dark pit #palutena #viridi #tagging them all since they're relevant at certain points #and all of them expect pittoo are featured in my doodles in some way so there's that as well #does this count as a doodle dump?#bella draws #bella writes #overly long essay #mythology typical violence tw

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leefi · 3 years ago

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ORV 19 (II)

Okay, wait - so there actually is something special about YSA.

[Incarnation caught in the scenario. The direction of fate is turning. The stories of the stars are gathering in one place and the fate of the constellations will begin.]

“What are you talking about? Are you referring to Gigantomachia?”

*GRABS MY NOTEBOOK*

I hurriedly grabbed Yoo Sangah’s body. Then I felt someone’s gaze from the sky. I shouldn’t raise my head right now. Nobody told me this but I instinctively knew. If I looked above me…[The exclusive skill ‘Fourth Wall’ has offset your mental shock.] I looked up with confusion. There was something in the distant Great Hall. It was a presence that destroyed Ariadne’s power. It seemed to be a tongue or a tentacle but in the end, it didn’t resemble anything. It was a fear that was beyond language and it was unable to be comprehended. A god from another world.

Same unknown god as before? I will name him Bernus.

thanks for letting me use your body to talk to the gods homegirl. *fist bump*

YES YOU WILL YES YOU WILL YES YOU WILL I'M SO PROUD OF YOU I LOVE YOU STAY SAFE *waves a little kdj flag*

Antinus didn’t have much time left. ‘…I need a new host.’ Antinus shook as she thought of the men who killed the Disaster of Questions. Those humans prevented the disaster that destroyed her planet. She was desperate in front of the unbelievable sight and decided again. She would get revenge through any means. She would exterminate the humans who destroyed her home, Chronos. ... At this moment, her antennae reacted. ‘This aura...?’ A familiar aura was felt. It was a power that she felt from the insect kings species found on Chronos in the past. Antinus’ increased her pace. If she infected a person with this potential, revenge wasn’t impossible. Finally, Antinus reached the location and encountered an unexpected being. She couldn’t believe it. How was this presence on Earth? “K-Kieeek―!” She instinctively made a sound and the boy’s eyes gleamed in the moonlight. “You will be the first insect!” The boy, Lee Gilyoung, laughed at Antinus.

KDJ: I've always wondered, is it fun for a writer to read what they wrote?”

HSY: it is very fun.

liar

"Using multiple stigmas will place a burden on Yoo Sangah-ssi’s body.” The damn Olympians wouldn’t tell her this but there was a limit to the story that a single being could afford. Every stigma contained the history of the constellation and the random blend of histories would impair the human spirit. If Yoo Sangah borrowed the stigmas of a large number of constellations, her remaining vitality would be reduced in an instant. Then in probably one year…

YSA... ;_;

Yoo Sangah smiled faintly. “Thank you for your concern.”

...

There were numerous wounds on the back of Yoo Sangah’s hand as she spoke. The wounds felt like a big hole for me. Han Sooyoung had said, ‘In the end, reading is the process of keeping the irregular holes in place.’

YSA!!!!!!

Yoo Sangah took the meat from the monsters and distributed it to the people. Some people felt sorry and bowed to her.

“It is just leftovers. It doesn’t matter.”

I left Han Sooyoung alone and pulled a yanaspleta stem out of my bag. It wasn’t possible for everyone to become a ‘hunter’ in this world. By now, there would be a great deal of research about the monster species all over the world. The man who received the plant from me bowed deeply.

“Ah! Thank you…”

“It’s nothing. Difficulties should be shared.”

Of course, I was essentially a different person from Yoo Sangah. All my good deeds were planned activities.

LIAR LIAR LIAR LIAR LIAR LIAR

I like that we have somebody (HSY) offering a more jaded perspective even though I disagree with it. The reality is that YSA's perspective will be right sometimes and HSY's will be right others.

Oh SHIT. Is this the central disaster?

What motivates a disaster to come back and destroy their own home planet? I understand why they leave to destroy others - survival - but their own? What's the incentive? If their sole purpose is destruction, where do they even go when they're done? What's the incentive to even live?

Yoo Jonghyuk had attempted it several times in the mid to late regressions. The first thing he did was find Shin Yoosung and try to prevent her from becoming a disaster. He failed every time. No matter what changes were made to the Shin Yoosung in the present, the future Shin Yoosung would return in five days. Then she destroyed Seoul.

*puts head in hands*

*HEAD HITS DESK*

This child, who might become a disaster, would become my ‘first incarnation’ in this round.

She's going to defeat her future self.

#orv19 #ayah reads orv #omniscient reader's viewpoint

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delicatelyherdreams · 5 years ago

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Pragma(tic) 2: He Becomes a Trespasser

Pairing: Persephone!Bucky Barnes x Hades!Reader

Summary: In a world where the old gods never truly died, you must learn to navigate your way through the ups and downs of immortality. And if living forever wasn’t hard enough, an ancient evil is now threatening to break free after centuries of silence. And as if that still wasn’t hard enough for you, now a pesky and infuriatingly handsome god is trying to wedge his way into your life. Gods, work, love, and conflict—what more could a goddess need? [Hades & Persephone AU]

Word Count: 4402

Warnings: Language

Pragma(tic) Masterlist

Previous 1: Her Morning Takes a Turn

The sun was golden against his skin, shining on the tan color he had come to acquire after so many hours out in the light. It beat down on the flesh, warming it and relaxing him. His arms were folded behind his head as he reclined on the grass. It was soft and cool on his skin; Crete always did have the best grass for lying on. His eyes were closed against the bright light, the rays illuminating his eyelids and highlighting the veins that ran through them. His chest rose and fell with even breaths. If one didn’t know any better, they’d say he was asleep.

But he wasn’t. The young god was just lounging about, listening in on the conversation that was being held not five feet away from him.

The two voices were of young men, one angry, agitated, and fidgeting, and the other slightly exasperated and amused.

Steve, a naiad, was talking with quick, jerky gestures. He was riled up, clearly upset, but not quite enraged. His fists were balled up tightly, almost as if he wanted to punch something. “...the bastard said I couldn’t do it,” he ranted and raved. “He thinks that because I’m a water spirit, I can’t get jewels like that.”

Sam, a dryad, was watching his friend skeptically. He tended to be the more level-headed of the three, always the mediator to calm Steve’s need to prove himself and Bucky’s somewhat erratic tendencies. He was the one to stop the two before they got themselves killed. “Steve,” he started in an attempt to reason, “it’s not worth your time. So what if you can’t get a ruby to prove him wrong? You’ve got bigger things to worry about.”

“Like what?” Steve asked with scalding agitation in his voice. “Like guarding Bucky?”

The young god’s eyes opened at the sound of his nickname and he sat up to look over at the two.

“No offense Buck, but really, you can protect yourself most of the time.” Steve turned back to Sam, his gaze hardening once more. “I want to do more than just be a bodyguard.”

“Like what? Like getting a ruby to prove some stupid nereid wrong?”

“Exactly!”

Bucky’s eyes danced with amusement, catching the sunlight up above and shining. He was always finding humor in his friend’s need to prove himself. Steve has always wanted to be the bigger man, be the one who’s worthy, be the one who can be more than he is. Ever since they were little, when Steve was small and scrawny, he’d been taking on dangerous and daring exploits, fights, and anything else he could get his hands on to prove himself. And even now that Steve was an adult with body mass, muscle, and strength to rival the gods, nothing had changed.

Steve frowned as he began to plot. “Now where can I find a ruby?”

“At a mortal jewelry store, probably,” Sam quipped. “But you know we’re not allowed to go there. Winnifred would have our heads. Besides, we don’t have any money to buy them.”

Steve’s lips turned down in a pout. “Dammit.” He scrunched up his face as he thought. “There’s gotta be some other place we can find them.”

“I’ve heard they’re usually in caves,” Bucky chimed in.

“Caves…” Steve repeated when suddenly his eyes lit up. “I’ve got it!” His whole body turned to Bucky, his eyes wide, his lips parted, his body straight and ready for action. “There’s a ton of caves down under. And the queen is literally the goddess of wealth. If anyone anywhere were to have a ruby, it’d be down there. Now, Bucky…” His voice quieted and his eyebrows knitted together, silently begging Bucky to do something.

Bucky simply chuckled, knowing full well what his best friend was asking of him. “Oh no you don’t. Don’t be giving me those puppy dog eyes. You know my mom would kill me if I went down there.”

“But Hades is dangerous and you’re a god, man,” Steve moaned. “You can’t die down there, I can. Your mother will never need to know about this. C’mon, do a brother a solid?” He tilted his head to the side. “I’ll owe you for the rest of my life.”

“Don’t do it, Buck,” Sam piped up. “Your mom will find out some way or another and we’ll all be screwed. Steve doesn’t need to get a ruby to prove himself. He’s just asking for trouble.”

“Oh come on, it can’t be hard to sneak in and grab one small ruby,” Steve whined.

“Or it could be extremely difficult and get Bucky in trouble.”

“He’s in, he grabs a ruby, he’s out. Easy!”

“No! Not easy. He’s gonna—”

“I’ll do it.”

“I’m sorry, you’ll what?”

Bucky shrugged nonchalantly. “I’ll do it. I’ll run down and grab Steve a ruby.”

Both Sam and Steve were shocked. Neither of them thought the young god would actually agree to this crazy plan. But Steve just beamed at him. “You are the freaking best.”

“I know.” Bucky barked a laugh and rose to his feet, the grass wedging in between his bare toes. “But how the Hades am I going to get down there? I don’t think the Underworld is on a map and has a giant sign saying ‘Congratulations, you’ve reached the Underworld.’”

“Well duh.” Steve rolled his eyes and looked around at their surroundings.

They were in a clearing on the island of Crete. It was a quaint little place separated from the mortals and their cities. Sitting at the base of Mount Ida, the clearing was directly below the Dikteon Cave where the Olympian queen had been hidden as a baby. The whole area was coated in her magic, especially that cave, and her magic did some weird things to the rift between worlds.

Steve pointed up at the cave’s mouth. “See that up there?”

Bucky had to squint, but he could see it. “Yeah.”

“When Hades was finishing up the Underworld and securing it, she wasn’t able to close the rift between the Mortal World and the Underworld in that cave. The familiar energy from her sister was too strong and it’s been open ever since. That’s your in and out. It should deposit you right next to a cave if you’re lucky.”

“Please, I was born lucky!” Bucky brushed off his jeans and started walking towards the mountain. “I’ll be back!” he called to his friends before pushing on to find a path up to the cave.

The mortals had tried to pave paths to the cave, but none of them got very far. The residue from Queen Carol’s aura kept them far away from the cave. No mortal could get within a hundred yards of the mouth of the cave. Luckily for Bucky, he was a god.

He marched right up the side of the mountain to the mouth of the cave and stepped inside. He could feel the temperature drop about ten degrees as soon as got an inch inside and the hairs on his arms bristled. A shiver ran down his spine to the tips of his toes, setting an uneasy feeling deep in the pit of his stomach. He shouldn’t have been there. He was a god of spring and new life; he had no business being among the dead.

If his mother saw him now, she’d be furious. Winnifred, the goddess of the harvest and agriculture, may have seemed kind and gentle, but she was strict and her wrath was untamable and wild. If she were to be disobeyed, she would guarantee that those that opposed her direct orders would pay for it.

Bucky loved his mother to death, but even he had to admit that she could be way too strict sometimes. She insisted that Bucky always dress properly and in a modest outfit, never permitting him nor his friends to dress in anything less than a pair of nice jeans and a pristine shirt. She required them to have limited access to the Mortal World, stating that they should only go if it was absolutely necessary. She didn’t like them frolicking among the mortals because they were Olympians, and above the humans.

She didn’t have many rules, but she did have one that was absolute: never have any contact with the Underworld or the dead. They were too dangerous for a young god like him.

Bucky couldn’t believe that he was breaking his mother’s most important rule, but at the same time, he was exhilarated. He’d never dared to do something so bold and it was showing. His palms were sweating despite the freezing chill in the air and his heart was racing fast in his chest. He was nervous. He shouldn’t have been there, but it was too late to go back now.

He pushed on, going deeper and deeper into the cave. The air changed around him, growing cold and unforgiving. It was dark and empty and lifeless. He was not in the Mortal World anymore. Bucky took a breath and took a final step, coming out of the cave and entering a chasm.

His breath got stuck in his throat.

He’d heard stories of the Underworld before, he’d heard descriptions of it, but nothing could’ve prepared him for what it actually was.

It was magnificent, regal, and impressive. With towering mountains in the distance on which a large mansion stood on top of, expansive fields of flowers, and hundreds of thousands of people milling about, Bucky was in awe. He couldn’t believe how organized and calm the realm was; he’d always thought that the Underworld would be savage and ugly, but here it was calm and silent.

He could’ve stood there for hours staring at everything around him and taking it all in, but he was on a mission. He had to find the ruby.

He put his head on a swivel, looking from side to side as he searched for a cave. Rubies formed in caves; they had to be there. It wasn’t long before his eyes landed on a single cave carved into the side of a wall, a single river flowing into the mouth of it. Granted, that river was made of fire, but Bucky didn’t think anything of it. He assumed that most rivers in the Underworld had some quirk about them and that this one was that it was on fire.

He slid along the side of the Underworld, getting closer and closer to the cave. He wanted to be in and out before he could be caught. He slipped into the mouth of the cave he saw and turned to face it.

The place was colder than the main part of the Underworld. His hairs were standing on end and he had a dreadful weight sitting in the pit of his stomach. Something was not right about this place. It felt bad; it felt evil.

The young god clenched up on himself, his shoulders rolling in as he attempted to shake the feelings but they refused to disappear. Yet, he pushed on.

It was dark in there, he had to give his eyes some time to adjust to the absence of light. When he could finally see again, he scanned the walls of the cave, his eyes peeled for anything shiny and red. It couldn’t be too hard to find a red jewel, right?

Wrong.

Upon further inspection, he noticed that there didn’t seem to be a single sparkly object in this godforsaken cave. Every rock was bleak and dull, only clothed in greys and blacks. There was absolutely no color in the cave. Bucky was starting to wonder if he’d ever find a ruby here. Maybe they just weren’t in this cave. Maybe he was in the wrong place. But he didn’t have much time to ponder that. The sinking feeling in his gut was growing heavier and heavier with every step he took in. He shouldn’t have been there. There was something massively wrong with that place. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

But it put its finger on him.

Bucky jumped when he felt something thin, hard, and bumpy touch his skin and latch onto his ankle. A scream tore out of his throat as he snapped his head down and kicked wildly.

A hand, skeletal and white, had grabbed him and was holding on for dear life. It didn’t want to let him go and it pulled him closer to the body that was attached to it.

Bucky had been too preoccupied with searching the walls to notice the mass of bodies that were starting to pile up around him. There were dozens, maybe more, of skeletons and spirits crawling their way to him. They almost seemed drawn to the life that oozed from him. And, surely, as soon as they touched him, he could feel them trying to steal the life from him. He felt listless and drained when they touched him, and he could tell that they were nothing but evil.

How had he gotten so far in without noticing? Was he that much of a fool?

Apparently so.

The spirits around him collected around his feet and reached up, clawing onto his pants and dragging him down.

He struggled in their grasps, doing his best to fight them off, but every time he shook one off, two more would take its place. They were slowly overpowering him, pulling him closer to the ground where more of them could absorb the life from him. He could feel the toll they were taking on him, and he hated himself for feeling so weak. He’d never been so powerless before, and it scared him. For the first time in his relatively young life, he was truly afraid.

With his mother around, he’d never had anything to fear. But his mother wasn’t here now and he was alone. And this was the end.

The spirits dragged him down to the cave’s floor and swarmed him, clamoring on top of him to maximize their hold.

“I don’t want to die” was the only thought running through his head, but Bucky simply closed his eyes, too afraid to do anything else, so he could wait it out. It’d be over sooner or later, and he was too tired to do anything to stop them. His energy had been drained. Maybe a nap would be nice and when he’d wake up, this would be all over. Yes… A nap sounded delight—

“Hey!” an angry and powerful voice boomed, the sound filling the cave and drowning out everything else.

The hands-on his body stopped dead in their tracks. It shouldn’t have been possible, but now Bucky felt their fear instead of his own.

“Get your hands off of him!” the woman yelled again, her voice filled with more power than Bucky could’ve ever imagined hearing.

The spirits obeyed, at once letting go and scurrying away from something—or someone—behind him.

Footsteps slammed against the rock beneath them, growing louder and louder as the mystery woman marched to Bucky. A hand latched onto the collar of Bucky’s shirt and yanked him back away from the spirits. A two-pronged bident took his place, swinging at the spirits menacingly and driving them away. It glowed the faintest blue in the darkness, illuminating the faces of the damned.

The ghosts and skeletons shied away, curling up on themselves and scrambling to get away as they hissed. They were obviously afraid of the person it belonged to.

Said person tightened their grip on Bucky and began to drag him out of the cave, the bident staying in front of him as they aimed to protect him.

Bucky tried to turn his head back to see his savior, but he couldn’t turn his head very far without being stopped by the hand on the back of his neck.

She pulled him out of the cave, past the river of fire, and threw him on the dead grass outside.

He landed flat on his ass with a satisfying “oof”. His hands shot back to catch him before he could fall on his back and he looked down at his body.

His once white shirt was now a dark shade of grey and torn and his jeans were torn nearly to shreds. There were scratches, scrapes, and bruises covering his legs. Little rivers of ichor ran down from the cuts, coating his skin with gold. He looked like a war-torn battlefield. His mother was going to kill him. If those spirits hadn’t finished the job, she sure would. He was dead meat. Steve and Sam better start planning his funer—

“Just what in the Hades were you thinking? Are you trying to get yourself killed?” the same voice from the cave demanded, only this time, she seemed more pissed than powerful. Her voice had lost the booming effect it had previously, but it was still sharp enough to send shivers down his spine.

Slowly Bucky lifted his eyes. The first thing he saw was a pair of black flats below black pleated pants. Looking further up he saw a black blazer covering a dark grey shirt, and further up still, he saw the face of a woman. She was quite beautiful in the way that something cold and hard like a statue was beautiful. He would’ve admired her features but he was too afraid of, and yet so enchanted by, her eyes. Her eyes, unlike most, weren’t a brown, blue, or green; no, they were red—a bright and fiery shade of scarlet that seemed to glow in the darkness of the Underworld. They held him trapped, hypnotized by the brilliant color.

He felt so small beneath her gaze, even though he was comparatively larger than she was.

She radiated power as she glowered down at him, the bident by her side making her even more intimidating. Her lips curled back in a snarl. “I asked you a question; answer me!”

Bucky flinched and started to stammer out, “I-I...”

She seemed exasperated by his loss of words and bent down to him.

He shied away, afraid that she was going to attack him, but she simply grabbed onto his wrist and pulled. Her skin was shockingly cold against his flesh and he inhaled sharply.

She dragged him to his feet and began to pull him after her as she walked away from the cave. She was beyond angry and that made her scary. The only saving grace was that her bident had seemingly melted into thin air, probably stored in some magical pocket somewhere. She was trembling with rage as she began to rant and rave, her grip never once loosening. “Of all the idiocy I have seen in my life, I have never seen someone as stupid as you. What kind of imbecile walks into the pit willingly? Do you have a death wish? Gods, it is not my fucking job to save daredevils from the edge of the pit.”

Bucky only stared at her, filled with confusion. His mind was racing a million miles an hour and he asked, “The pit?”

“Tartarus, you insolent fool!” she snapped, quickening her pace as she pulled him towards the place he’d come in. How she knew about the exit, Bucky didn’t know, but she continued speaking, “The prison of the worst souls known to man, the titans, and any monster you could dream of. How could you possibly—” She froze in her steps as if it suddenly dawned on her that she didn’t know who Bucky was. Rigidly, she looked over her shoulder, her red eyes glaring at him. “Who are you?”

“M-Me?”

“Yes, you!”

Bucky blanked. Who was he again? He could barely remember under her intense gaze. “I’m, uh… I’m Bu— James. I’m James, god of spring, son of—”

“Demeter,” she spat out, her voice dripping heavily with venom and contempt. “Great. Just fucking great. You’re a new god. And not just a new god, the fucking son of Demeter.” She pinched the bridge of her nose in between her thumb and forefinger and heaved a great sigh.

He stared at her, even more confused than before. “H-Her name is Winnifred,” he stuttered out, his voice cracking.

She rolled her eyes. “Same fucking difference. It’s the same woman.”

“Well, yes, I suppose. But wait! You know my mother?”

"Of course I know your goddamn mother. She hates my guts and I'm not too fond of her either.” The woman squeezed her eyes shut and let her head fall back with an even louder groan. “Gods, she's probably going to think I kidnapped you or something! Do you realize what you being down here means?"

“I—”

“Of course you don’t! How could you? You’re just some young, stupid, idiotic god who thinks he can go anywhere he pleases. Well, news flash, you’re not allowed to roam my domain without my permission. This is not a place for the living, and you’re lucky you escaped with only minor wounds.”

“Your domain?” Bucky furrowed his brows, his steps faltering. “Wait… Then, you’re—”

“Hades,” she confirmed. “But that’s just what the mortals call me. You need not know my name, you only need know that you have to leave. You were never supposed to be here in the first place and you will never get in again.” She dragged him towards the cave he’d entered the Underworld through and yanked him in.

Crossing the threshold, he could feel the immediate change in the air. He could feel life surging back to him as they entered the Mortal World. He could also feel Hades stumble as if the sudden rush of life was startling to her.

She pulled him through the Dikteon Cave and out into the sun at the mouth of the cave. “Where did you come from?” she demanded, her voice low and cold as her hands.

Bucky pointed down towards the clearing where he could just barely make out the figures of Sam and Steve.

She let go of his wrist and grabbed his upper arm instead. “Hold on.”

He didn’t get a chance to ask her what she meant, because she leaped up into the air and off the side of the mountain, pulling him with her. The wind whistled past his ears as they fell, and he had to trap the scream that was rising in his throat.

They landed on the edge of the clearing, the ground trembling beneath them. She released Bucky, throwing him forward a bit before straightening up and glaring at Steve and Sam who had started running over.

With her shoulders rolled back and her body completely in the light, Bucky could now observe her fully. The red had faded from her eyes, revealing a wonderful shade of (e/c) that had red-rimmed around the iris. Her skin was devoid of life and she had deep, dark circles covering the skin beneath her eyes. Bucky hated to admit it, but she almost looked dead. She was unsettling but in a gorgeous, powerful kind of way.

Steve ran over to Bucky’s side, his face panicked. “Buck,” he breathed out, “are you alright? What happened?”

“He went where he had no business going,” Hades answered, her voice agitated and disgruntled. “You two are his watchers, no?”

“U-Um, yes, Ma’am?” Steve responded, thoroughly anxious.

“Then fucking watch him,” she snapped, her voice suddenly growing in volume. “The Underworld is no place for fledgling gods who have no experience in the real world.”

Sam turned to Bucky, his eyes wide with alarm. He probably wanted to say something in their defense, but the only thing he asked was, “Did you get the ruby?”

Bucky could’ve smacked him.

Hades glowered at Sam. “What ruby? Explain yourselves.”

Bucky gulped. “It’s the reason I went down. My friend wanted a ruby and I thought I could find one in the Underworld and I…” He couldn’t even finish his sentence, realizing how stupid it was under her incredulous look.

“You mean to tell me you went to fucking Tartarus for a ruby? A single ruby that’s worth hardly anything to a god?”

“...Yes.”

She barked a bitter laugh, doubling over and placing her hands on her knees to steady herself. “I can’t believe this.” She held out her fingers, maintaining a small gap in between her thumb and forefinger, and a single, raw ruby, red as blood and the size of a large pebble, formed out of thin air. “Here. Take your damn ruby.” She chucked it at the ground at Bucky’s feet before narrowing her eyes at him. “You got what you came for, and now you have no reason to return. If I ever, and I mean ever, catch you in my realm again, I will teach you why the mortals call it Hell.” She spared the men one last snarl before taking a step away from them, digging something out of her pocket, and dropping the minuscule item on the ground.

At once, the ground trembled and shook and a hole opened up at her feet. The ground swallowed her, pulling her into the depths before closing up again like nothing ever happened. In her place stood a single flower with an elongated stem and a spike of white blossoms: an Asphodel.

Bucky’s gaze switched between the flower and the ruby until it finally settled on the jewel. Slowly he reached for the ruby and picked it up to examine it. It was heavy in his hand, beautiful and clear. It filtered the light that passed through it and cast odd shapes that mimicked its raw cut in red on his palm. But it wasn’t the ruby itself that mesmerized him, it was the color; the same color of her eyes. Bucky was certain that that shade of red would be burned into his memory for all eternity, and as he stood there with Sam and Steve fawning over him making sure he was okay and talking about getting him cleaned off and changed into new clothes because he “reeked of death”, he couldn’t help but think of her: Hades, the woman whose name he did not fully know, but whose face had suddenly washed over his mind and infiltrated every nook and cranny of his thoughts. His grip tightened over the ruby and he smiled to himself softly.

Next 3: Her Head Aches

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girl4music · 5 years ago

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Suicide/Self-Sacrifice/Manic-Depression

This may well be my best post yet regarding philosophical theories and artistic interpretations, using the characters and storylines from the show, ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’, as a staple, if I can explain my thoughts and feelings on it well enough. I want to tackle the themes of ‘suicide’, ‘manic-depression’ and ‘self-sacrifice’. Some posts I’ve reblogged on Tumblr have inspired me to write down my take on these subjects, and the situations, circumstances and consequences that follow. This will probably be a very long post, so bear with me. I’ll try to keep on topic as much as possible, as this will be very hard to explain in a way that will not be offending, ignorant or just plain stupid. I want it to come across to people in a positive way!

Callisto:

The character Callisto was introduced in Season 1 and her story was very complicated. It was difficult to understand her consciously and morally for the awful things she was doing, and her reasons as to why she was doing them. Eventually there came to a point in the show where she felt she had nothing left to live for and she wanted to die. This was right after she heard the screams of Xena mourning the death of her son, Solan, in the Season 3 episode, ‘Maternal Instincts’. You see the expression of pure ecstasy on her face, as she had desired this for so long. To make Xena feel the pain and the grief she caused her when she burned her hometown and murdered her family. To give her a taste of the immense torture it had inflicted on her all throughout the years growing up alone and full of revenge, driving her to psychopathy. I’ve said this before, but I could never quite look at Callisto as a villain, as I could see she was so damaged and depressed, that she really couldn’t help becoming the way she did. I feel she was seriously misunderstood, and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who feels this way about her. This scene in the episode was supposed to be her moment of accomplishment and relief. But then her facial expression begins to change to confusion and apathy. She realized it didn’t do anything to cure her condition, it only made her empty and numb inside. She was waiting for the relief to wash over her and for the pleasure to settle into her system and it didn’t. After so many years of wanting to destroy Xena’s soul, she finally got her wish… and it did NOTHING!

What brought her to the point of yearning for death was the fact that she couldn’t feel anything anymore. Not even her hatred for Xena… which was what was motivating her to hold on to her life to begin with. She believed the only meaning to her life was to destroy Xena’s. The delicious scent of fulfillment never came, and she was done with it. From that point onwards she craved oblivion, and unfortunately for her, since becoming a god, that wasn’t possible. The Olympian gods cannot take their own lives. Another must do it or they must get permission from Zeus, as their roles as immortals are important and too valuable to be wasted, according to the king of the gods. This was the fatal flaw in her plan. She wanted to live long enough to sate her vengeance. But what she ended up doing instead was giving herself no way out of her emotional and mental torment. What did, however, relieve her of that, as we see later in the show, was Xena sacrificing herself to save her soul from eternal damnation in Hell. Thus, as an angel, she was reformed and could forgive Xena without question. She helped Eli bring her and Gabrielle back to life, as well as provide her with what she once took from her. A child. A human life, that to which would conceal her reincarnated soul, giving her what Xena once took from her. A mother. Such a beautiful and satisfying end to her story. If she had found a way to destroy her existence, that would have never happened for her, as it was impossible for her to not experience consciousness. No matter which reincarnated body, denomination of the afterlife or alternate reality she was in. Committing suicide would not have helped anything. It would not have given her any kind of respite whatsoever. Suicide was not the answer. Xena’s self-sacrifice was. It was down to Xena to save her, as Callisto was well passed the point of saving herself.

Xena:

Now this is where I need to be very careful because I don’t want to upset anyone who has had personal experiences with losing loved ones to suicide, or give those who might have suicidal tendencies an excuse to act on them. I’m going to try my best to express myself in a respectful way regarding Xena’s story, and whether she was suicidal or not, as some Xenites have pointed out parts of the show where it’s explicitly implied that she was because she had no regard for her own life and felt she never deserved forgiveness. We’ll start off with the pilot episode, ‘Sins Of The Past’, as this is where her story starts after changing her ways and reforming into a heroine for the ‘greater good’. Turning away from her darkness, and her desire to destroy anyone who got in her way of conquering entire nations. We see her riding Argo into smoke-filled areas, where an attack has evidently struck. Her mind occupied with images and sounds of the sins of her past. Remembering all the lives she had destroyed physically and emotionally. She comes across a boy in the wreckage of the village she was passing by and gave him some food before speeding off out of the area. I personally think this scene was a delusion, as the boy was talking about how it was Xena who killed his parents, and that she came out of the sky “throwing thunderbolts and breathing fire.” I believe the boy and the decimated village was real but the experience he was relating was not. So, therefore, I feel it was just her deluding herself with the memories of the horrible things she had done, and the consequences it had on the lives of those she victimized and destroyed.

Next we see her in a wooded surrounding taking off her armor and leathers, leaving her in only her under-shift, and burying them, covering them with soil and leaves. It is here where it is possible she was thinking of committing suicide as we also see her staring blankly, presumably deep in thought at what she was about to do. Contemplating on going through with it, I would assume. Now if we go all the way to the second to last episode, ‘A Friend In Need Part I’, we see her do the exact same thing, only this time, her last look and thoughts were of Gabrielle, walking in the opposite direction, with absolutely no inclination of what she was about to do, which was to allow the army to kill her. We watch her put up enough of a fight to take out as many men as she possibly could, until finally meeting the general face to face as he cuts off her head, in first-person view, with blood covering the camera screen, shocking us all. She was allowing him to kill her as she could have easily stopped him if she had wanted to, as Gabrielle points out later. She evidently was wanting to die. So these parallels definitely allude to her being suicidal and caring nothing for her own life. Only Gabrielle’s and the people who were about to be attacked by Yodoshi’s soldiers. I don’t blame her to be honest. The 40,000 lives she had taken all those years ago would have drove her to that conclusion. Their blood on her hands, if only figuratively, making the decision for her. So considering those scenes, as well as her confession to Gabrielle, in the Season 6 episode, ‘Legacy’, that she was the one who changed her decision to “wanting it to end”, it is very conceivable she was plagued with suicidal thoughts throughout the entire show. And given this theory is accurate, it tells you Gabrielle saved her life without even realizing it from the moment she first met her. That is an astonishing revelation, and it completely changes the tone of the whole show. The thought that Xena could have been suicidal all that time. She was only happy when she was with Gabrielle, who she referred to as her “light” and her “source”. Her reason for existing at all. Therefore, what the meaning of life was for Xena wasn’t a theme of any kind. It was a living and breathing human, who seemingly enjoyed her life and was very peaceful about it to begin with… but was she really? We’ll get on to her next…

Gabrielle:

This is a perspective that might be a little bit of a reach, and there certainly isn’t any reason to make this show seem any darker than it already is from what I’ve talked about previously, but I feel I must include this character in this topic of conversation, as she is my favourite character in the whole show. @brifigy made an enlightening post that I would like you to read:

https://girl4music.tumblr.com/post/168126126575/girl4music-brifigy-girl4music-brifigy

I think @brifigy had a valid theory, and I’d like to elaborate on it to support it. I am quite observant, so I notice things others completely overlook. There are certain traits from Gabrielle’s psyche I want to bring to light to you all, in continuation of @brifigy’s theory. Gabrielle might have been struggling with manic-depression. However, because of her incredible capacity for emotional strength, she was able to hide it from the audience and convince them that she was a happy person, as she so evidently appeared to be from the outside.

You must look very deeply into her character to pick up instances of depression and mania. It is very probable she could have been manic-depressed. Obviously, back then, there was no such term or diagnosis available for mental and emotional disorders. It’s a very relevant and logical perspective to come to, as her character is very layered and complicated. Though, it’s rather hard to pinpoint exactly where it might have been accurate. This is my attempt at pinpointing moments in the show where this perspective makes sense, with my limited knowledge on manic-depression.

The first thing I want to mention is Gabrielle’s insistence to cater to and sacrifice herself for others, both physically and emotionally. We see this side of her right from the start. In her introduction scene, she is shown sacrificing her own life for the health and freedom of her family. The very same event that saved Xena from committing suicide… was also the one where Gabrielle offered her own life to the slave-traders. In fact, throughout the whole of the season we see her constantly doing this for others. Putting herself in harm’s way. Throwing herself in front of strangers. Doing dangerous tasks to prove herself as a responsible young adult, and worthy of being Xena’s sidekick. Bravely stepping up to the plate time and time again to protect and defend others, even with her lack of fighting skill and strength, all the while showing extreme naivety and recklessness.

But what for? What was her motive? Why did she behave this way? Why was she so compassionate and selfless? Well, if you’ve ever met someone who struggles with manic-depression, you will also most likely meet a person who is the most caring, kind and optimistic person you’ve ever encountered in your life, as this person is so tormented by their inner-demons, that they would never wish the same on others, and will endeavor to be a person who will always be there for others, and offer as much help and emotional support as they possibly can. They are usually very empathetic, artistic and adventurous. Always wanting a change in routine and schedule to keep them passionate about life. Always looking for meaning in everything, as they want to be able to give to the world their help and healing. The very thing they do not have for themselves or know how to give themselves. They are also somebody that always doubts themselves, and believes they have more faults than skills, but they express it in such a way where it seems like they’re not being serious. It just comes across as a funny passing joke. Laughing at themselves and their imperfections, but deep inside really struggle with them, and believing in themselves and their capabilities. They give to others what they cannot give to themselves. Pointing out their potential and strengths to lift that person’s confidence and vibration. They talk about subjects that refer to overcoming obstacles and finding the meaning of life. But you never really notice that they’re talking about themselves because they’re just so damn good at putting it into a non-personal way.

If this does not sound like Gabrielle to you in the first season, you haven’t really been paying enough attention, because I can point out many times where Gabrielle has shown these personality and behavioural traits, and not just in the first season either. Gabrielle had an immense evolution, and a lot of what happened to her in Season 3 made her really grow up. She became stronger and wiser because of it. Initially, she appeared to be an overly enthusiastic, loving life, kind of person. But was she just putting on a show? And if she was suffering with manic-depression, (or what has come to be known as ‘bipolar disorder’ nowadays) what caused this manifestation of mental issues in the first place? Childhood trauma, perhaps? It seems like Gabrielle’s first experience of trauma is in Season 2 and Season 3. But we have no idea what was going on before that in her hometown or inside her head. We’ll never know. But what we do know is that Xena saved her, as she confesses that in the Season 4 episode, ‘The Ides Of March’, as @brifigy‘s post said. It’s as good a confirmation as any.

Thank you, @brifigy for enlightening us with this insight into Gabrielle’s character. I merely only wanted to elaborate on it and support it. I hope you don’t mind. I’m done! That was long-winded, but I hope you took something from it. It’s a hard topic to talk about, but I thought I’d express my thoughts and feelings on it, thoroughly, anyway. If you got this far, thank you so much for reading. I love my Xenite family. I hope none of you ever take your own life, or put yourself in a situation where you could die, because you don’t care about yourself. You are deserving of so much in this world, and it would not be the same without you. Do not follow Xena!

IF YOU EVER WANT TO TALK PRIVATELY… MY DM’S ARE OPEN!

#xena warrior princess #xena and gabrielle #xena #lucy lawless #gabrielle #renee o'connor #callisto #hudson leick #return of callisto #maternal instincts #legacy #sins of the past #the ides of march #suicide #self-sacrifice #manic-depression #bipolar disorder #brifigy #theory

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twoflipstwotwists · 5 years ago

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At only 19 years old, author, Dancing with the Stars winner, and Olympic gymnast Laurie Hernandez has accomplished an unbelievable amount in high-stress environments. All with a smile on her face. But it hasn’t always been easy.

Laurie entered the world stage during the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro with the famed U.S. ‘Final Five’ gymnastics team. She left Rio with gold and silver medals, and earned a reputation of having one of the most positive attitudes and expressive faces in gymnastics.

She’s become a symbol of optimism, determination, and kindness, and continues to inspire people across the world. And as our very first IDONTMIND Ambassador, Laurie is leading by example and opening up about her own mental health with the hope of inspiring other people to do the same.

We chatted with Laurie about overcoming her anxiety during competitions, working through depression post-Olympics, and figuring out how to take care of her mental health while in the spotlight.

IDONTMIND: So how’s your mental health today? Laurie: I mean, it's okay! I'm a little bit anxious after taking time off from training after the Olympics. I’m diving right back into a really high level of gymnastics. I’m just trying to get everything back, but it's also mixed with excitement. It's going to be a whirlwind of a year.

IDM: Would you mind sharing your mental health journey with us? Laurie: I grew up in a house where feelings were always something that we talked about. My mom is a social worker and my sister just became a therapist. Since I was little, I had natural nerves before competing. My mom was always a really big help before competing – I’d tell her ‘My legs felt like jello, my hands are shaking, I want to sit in the corner and cry.’ She would give me different ways to help with that, and the older I got, the more I found it really helpful. Even just throughout the Olympics, I would call her crying, and she was like, ‘Okay, this is normal. We've done this before. Take a deep breath.’

Throughout gymnastics, I saw sports psychologists here and there, and that was also really helpful. It was nice to just have someone to talk to about things like, ‘Hey, this is how I feel before I'm competing. Is this normal? How do I deal with it?’ And talking to someone about it was kind of the first step into understanding how my brain works when I'm nervous.

I took two years off from gymnastics after the Olympics, and that was a really big change. I went from training seven, eight hours a day and eating super healthy to not training at all and eating whatever I wanted. I watched my body change. That was really scary for me because there's this high pyramid of the ideal body types for gymnastics and what you're supposed to look like. It was already being judged when I was in competition shape, and now that I wasn't competing or doing the sport, I was watching myself change. And that kind of kick-started it.

I was already dealing with some depression during gymnastics on and off. But during those two years it just snowballed. It was just a hectic two years of constantly traveling, even though I wasn't really training. And then coming back to gymnastics, as interesting as it was, is kind of how I started healing.

I ended up talking to a regular therapist, not sports-related. And that changed everything. My mom had always told me, ‘Hey, you're Laurie who just so happens to be a gymnast, you're not Laurie the gymnast.’ So having someone to talk to – not about gymnastics, but about me personally – was really helpful.

Now, here I am today. I'm doing gymnastics and I’m dealing with it.

IDM: What are you most focused on right now? Laurie: Currently, training is really the number one priority. I'm training full-time, six days a week and about five hours a day. The next big step will be in November at a training camp. That's kind of my first appearance back for gymnastics. So that’s going to be a big stepping stone that will lead into another camp in January. That will snowball into, hopefully, international competitions early next year.

IDM: What are your go-to self-care rituals? Laurie: It definitely took a second to find what works me. If I'm really anxious, I have too much energy, so I feel the need to maybe go for a run or at least drive somewhere. Just get out and go. I just got my driver's license, so lately it's been me just driving anywhere and then figuring out my way home.

And then dealing with depression, there comes a point where you don't want to do anything, so it's about finding a way to relax. It's really just being in tune with how I'm feeling and what I might need at the moment. Is it that I have to get moving or do I have to take it easy and take my time moving through things?

IDM: Your nickname is ‘The Human Emoji’ because of the expressive faces you always have during your routines. What emoji describes how you're feeling on a good mental health day? Laurie: On a good mental health day it would be the new emoji where it's smiling with its mouth closed and it's got hearts all over. On the good days, I just want to be there for other people. I want to help. I want to do things. I want to go outside. I want to have a really good workout.

IDM: What emoji describes you on a not so good mental health day? Laurie: The not so good mental health days, it would probably be the emoji with the zipper as the mouth because, when I do feel that way, it's not my first instinct to talk about it. Speaking up doesn't come naturally. It still feels a bit unnatural!

IDM: Everyone talks about your infectious smile. Does being a face of positivity and happiness across the world make it easier or harder to discuss your mental health? Laurie: Oh man. It's kind of 50/50. When I’m in front of the screen, and even just competing for gymnastics or doing events that millions of people can see, there's a natural joy that comes from it. When I'm smiling and I'm radiating that joy, it’s because I truly feel it.

Unfortunately, on the days where I am having a rough go at it, that's what people still expect from me. Sometimes I can't give 100%, and I’ll see a question mark above some people's heads. ‘What's going on? Why isn't she all the way up?’ It's a tough persona to uphold. I think communicating about it with my family, my friends, and everybody who I work with has been really helpful. But I love that my claim to fame is being positive, and at the end of the day, that’s what I want to put out there.

IDM: Are there people that you always turn to whenever you feel like you're struggling? Laurie: I think my go-to person is probably my sister. I feel very comfortable letting her know how I feel. And she always has pretty much the perfect response for it. I don't know if it's because she studied for that or because she's my sister and she knows me like nobody else does. But she always knows the right thing to say. She was the one always encouraging me to go and talk to someone about it, even if it wasn't her, and encouraging me to try something new so that way I could feel better.

I think that it's so important to have a go-to person. They don't see you as your lows. They see you as a person, but they're there for your lows if you have them.

IDM: Tell us about your limited-edition IDONTMIND tee. What inspired the design? Laurie: There was a point where I just couldn’t pick myself up. Looking back now, it was actually a big mental health moment for me. I finally opened up to my mom about it, and she just hugged me for a long time and then she said, ‘You have to go through it, to grow through it.’ That has stuck with me, even years later.

When I was designing my shirt, I knew immediately that I wanted flowers to be a part of it. Flowers are something that always make me feel connected to my parents and connected to making sure that I'm taking care of myself. Even if I'm having a rough mental health day, I’ve still got to water my plants, because they need it.

It came from the idea that your mind and your body need you to take care of them. They are things you need to go out of your way to take care of. It’s just saying ‘Take care of your mind as you would take care of anything else.’

IDM: What does being an IDONTMIND Ambassador mean to you? Laurie: I mentioned to my mom that I had this interview with IDONTMIND and I was nervous about it. I know my gymnastics story inside out, I talk about it all the time. It's something that's always asked about. But mental health is not one of those things. And I was worried that I was oversharing. Is it factual? Am I venting? What’s the difference? And my mom was just kind of guiding me through that. She was like, ‘You know, I think this is a wonderful opportunity to share your story. You've done all these awesome things, but you still have things that you struggle with. It shows other people that they can still do it too, even though they're feeling this way.’

That snowballed into a two-hour conversation. My mom opened up, and there were a lot of things where she said, ‘You know, I haven't shared this with anybody.’ That all started with us talking about IDONTMIND. It made our bond even stronger. And it was because we opened the door to talk about mental health, and that wasn't something that was quite open for her before.

So thank you. Because that means the world to me above anything else.

—

Laurie’s limited edition IDONTMIND tee is available for preorder through Friday, December 6. 100% of the proceeds support IDONTMIND, an official program of Mental Health America.

#laurie hernandez

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jflashandclash · 5 years ago

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Tales from Mount Othrys

Luke: Uncomfortable Beginnings IV

“Did you kill them? Who are you and what are you trying to recruit me for? Us for,” Fēi Lín asked.

Luke knew he didn’t need to hide the answers to those questions, but his mind still raced. What if she asked about something else? Something about Kronos that he wasn’t willing to share?

“I’m ashamed to say I hadn’t even heard of Jackie boy before today. Again, embarrassing considering that someone must have written about his healing, even if a wack journalist,” Phil said, putting his hands up in a surrender position. Either that or showing off the ligaments that he might be about to lose. “Though, if he only sings in choir or hospitals, they could have attributed it to God or doctors.”

“Same,” Luke said, his mouth working before he could plan the words. “About not knowing Jack or his family. I don’t read wack journals. We’re recruiting you to help destroy the Olympic gods because I’m mad at my dad.”

Hatred burned in Luke’s chest. He did not like disclosing that last part so casually to strangers. That made it sound so simple; it undermined what he wanted to do to the Olympians and the pain he went through. What Thalia had suffered.

“Smooth, kid,” Phil said.

Fēi Lín tapped the driver wheel, glaring at the satyr. “And you? Why do you want to recruit me?”

“Hey, I’m good at my job, lady, and I’m proud of dredging through your records. People that get in your way, they do things that they wouldn’t normally do to hurt themselves. Recruiting you will put a shiny spot on my record and I’ll get all the fuzzy feels about helping a kid, since I feel like you’ll do way better at Camp Othrys than Camp Half-Blood. And as to why I’m doing this job—do you think all satyrs like being Dionysus’ slaves?” Phil spat out the window. “I don’t even care if we win the coming war and I don’t really care about our boss. I just wanna be a thorn in that bastard’s toe.”

Luke made a mental note about how Phil didn’t care if they won. That could be detrimental later.

Fēi Lín tapped her steering wheel again. “Everybody out,” she said.

Luke jumped out of the car. Phil was half a second behind him. Luke bit his lip. He wasn’t entirely sure if she’d forced him out of the car or if he’d hopped out on instinct.

Jack slowly slid out of his seat, hugging himself.

“Where are we?” Luke finally asked.

“Somewhere you will act respectfully and ask a minimal number of questions,” Fēi Lín said. She jumped out of the car and flicked her keys around one finger, leading them towards a side door that looked more like an entrance to a scene from Scream.

In a small town like this, Luke had an uncomfortable feeling that this girl would know exactly where to hide their bodies.

“The Dǒng residence,” Phil said, “Kid, I know you’re dyslexic and all, but, uh, you can read the files that I slaved over making you, right? They’re in Greek.”

Luke scowled. With the Kronos dreams at night, directing Cabin Eleven during the day, and then sneaking out during his off hours to set up Camp Othrys and gather an army, he thought he deserved some slack. He couldn’t exactly read files on potential campers at the pavilion with all the tiny Hermes hands hoping for some blackmail on each other. “You could also tell me about them on the way over here,” Luke spat back.

Fēi Lín led them through the door and down a hallway that’s carpet might have been cleaner if it came from a dumpster. Lights flickered and water stains seeped down the once-white walls. Each door was a faded color, perhaps originally bright greens and reds. There was a piece of trash here and there and, to Luke’s disgust, a used condom.

This really did look like somewhere she would strap them into a chair and start a very different kind of interrogation.

She stopped at a bend in the hallway, in front of the single freshly painted red door.

Jack perked up and rushed to stand beside her.

Once Fēi Lín finished unlocking the door, Jack reached for the handle.

She paused and examined him. Her stern expression broke. “Jack…” she said in the best we talked about this voice.

Jack gave her the world’s weakest smile. He cleared his throat and his tears. “After you, Ms. Davidson,” he said, his voice shaking as he opened the door for her and gestured the three of them inside.

Fēi Lín’s discolored cheeks lit up. It took Luke a moment to process that she was blushing and to realize Jack and Fēi Lín might not just be friends, or, at least Jack wanted them to be more.

Fēi Lín briskly entered.

Luke swallowed, glancing over her shoulder to make sure they weren’t walking into some kind of trap. Not that she needed to trap him considering what she did to the cops.

He could hear running water and music. The room was brightly lit, nothing like the terror he’d been expecting from the earlier hallway.

Jack continued to hold the door and motioned them forward, that shaky smile probably the least encouraging thing Luke had seen.

Phil walked in without hesitation. Luke followed and also made a mental note to talk to Phil about his willingness to walk into situations that had “death” written all over them.

“Shoes off,” Fēi Lín said, already setting hers onto a floor matt beside the door. She slipped on some smiling bunny slippers. Not what Luke was expecting. “Zài jiā! Zǎo shang hǎo, Nǎinai,” she said, louder. “Jack hé wǒ de liǎng gè péngyǒu yě zài zhèlǐ.”[1]

Phil frowned down at his hooves. He’d already kicked off his boots when he assaulted the cops. “Anyone got some plastic wrap that I can slap over these suckers?”

Fēi Lín shot him a glare.

Jack took off his neon orange converses and slipped on a pair of dragon slippers that must have been there for him. Luke followed Jack and Fēi Lín’s lead and put his shoes on the floor mat.

The apartment was small and minimalist. There wasn’t a hint of clutter. On the right, there was a small kitchen with plants hanging and nesting in every open space. The windows beside the counter were open and showed off the apartment building’s modest garden. On the left, there was a table with four chairs and a small box TV that looked like it was from the 80’s.

A massive framed mirror lined the left wall, reflecting the window’s view. A tiny fountain gurgled beside the doorway.

There were two closed doorways in front of them, one Luke guessed was a bathroom and the other he assumed was a bedroom. Opera music came from under one of the doors.

Fēi Lín walked to the door with the music and slipped inside, shutting the door behind her without a word to them.

Walking into the apartment seemed to calm Jack. He stepped over to the kitchen and set a kettle on the stove. He hesitated, looking at Phil and Luke. “Um, do either of you want anything to drink? Flynn says that Mrs. Davidson, her grandma, doesn’t really like me drinking soda, since it’s bad for my voice, but…” Jack leaned forward a little bit, his weak grin becoming goofy. “I hide some Coke behind the extra trash bags in the cabinet if you’d like one. It’ll be our secret.”

Phil snorted. “Jeeze kid, the Coca-Cola scandal. How did a goodie church boy like you end up with Ms. Pleather Pants? And coke for the kid. I’ll take a mug if you’re making a pot of tea.”

Jack’s freckled face went bright red. For a split second, it was like nothing had happened to his family. “I—I don’t know. Flynn can have anyone she wants, and does when it suits her fancy.”

Luke stomach twisted at the way Jack said it, though the younger guy didn’t seem to think it was a big deal. Something about that felt very wrong. Luke realized it would be dumb to point out how Fēi Lín’s facial scars might limit her partner choices, especially to someone sweet on her.

One part stuck. “We could have been saying Flynn this whole time?” Luke asked, glaring at Phil.

Phil shrugged, smirking. “I thought a little enculturation would be good for you.”

Jack pulled two mugs down from a cabinet and withdrew two Cokes. He brought the Cokes over to the table. He motioned for them to sit down.

Luke took a Coke from him and collapsed in a chair. Phil sat beside him.

This was proving to be a complicated day. Even though the drink was warm, it felt refreshing after how tense he’d been. Just having a break from Fēi Lín—Flynn?—was nice. How much time had they spent out though? He needed to make sure Mr. D wouldn’t get suspicious. The Stolls, two of his most promising campers, could only cause organized chaos to cover for him for so long.

At least Jack would talk, even if he did seem a little absent. Luke imagined finding your family dead would do that to you. “So, you and Flynn?” he asked, unsure if they could uncover anything else about Jack’s family and nervous Flynn would storm out the moment he asked where she went.

Jack’s blush grew redder. “Yea. Her family was new to town. Everyone around here knows each other, so—uh—she was cool. She saved me from a monster attack. She—she’s so awesome.” His eyes turned wistful as he glanced at the closed door.

The kettle began to whistle. Jack robotically walked back to fill the two mugs. “She told me that I wasn’t broken in the head, that I really could help people. Like…” Jack brought the two mugs over. Again, he conspiratorially leaned closer to Phil and Luke as he set the cups down. “She said her grandmother hadn’t acknowledged anyone since Flynn moved in with her. Sometimes, after I sing for them, Mrs. Davidson will even smile at me.”

Jack giggled in delight, grinning from ear to ear.

“Uh—huh,” Phil said, glancing at Luke. “Kid, you can definitely heal people. I guess I’m just wondering… with Flynn��s record, I take it your parents didn’t like you spending time with her or her grandma?”

It was Luke’s turn to kick Phil’s hoof. This guy had just lost his family. Luke remembered how unstable he was before he found Thalia, when he ran from his mother, and how quick he’d come to tear people down if they criticized Thalia’s clothing after they got close.

Jack frowned. He sat down beside them, his posture rigid. He stared at his untouched bottle of Coke. “Aston told them the stupid rumors going around the school about her.”

Phil leaned back. “Is that what you guys argued about last night?”

Jack fiddled with the bottle. His eyes were so red-rimmed and sunken. “I…. I asked Flynn to prom yesterday, when I was carrying her books to her English class. She gets so mad when I fuss over her.” He cracked a small smile. “But, I like, asked-asked her, not just as a friend.”

Luke took another swig of his Coke. He had to wonder if Thalia would have hit him for asking her to a dance. He suspected she’d secretly be thrilled. He hoped, with everything they planned with Kronos, he’d get to find out one day.

It sucked that Jack asked Flynn the night before his family died. Ways to bum out an occasion.

“I’d been planning how to ask her for weeks—I mean, I didn’t think she would actually say yes with how stupid she thinks that stuff is and—I mean—I’m just a junior,” Jack continued. His bashfulness died with the next comment. “Mom and Steve already don’t like me going out because of my condition, but the idea of me dating Flynn… especially since they don’t like her telling me I’m not crazy…” Jack’s hand shook as he peeled the label off the bottle. “They’re wrong about her.”

For a moment, only the fountain gurgled.

That was a motive for murder, but Luke still didn’t buy it.

Jack set the bottle down, eyes wide. “B—but you can’t tell her that’s what we argued about. I don’t want her to think—”

“Jack.”

Jack’s lips pressed shut and he ducked his head down.

Flynn stepped out of the room, giving them a critical look. There was a duffle bag over her shoulder. She walked over to Jack and held a hand out to him. “Mr. Sunny?” she asked.

Jack exhaled in relief. He fumbled around in his pockets and withdrew a—a weekly pill organizer? Luke blinked. They’d named it?

She snatched it and went to fumble in the cabinets. “This place you want to recruit us to, do they have access to Clozapine, Olanzapine, or Aripiprazole?”

Phil snorted. “Those aren’t exactly interchangeable, but, yea, I can get them for you.” He scowled.

Luke’s stomach took a sharper turn as he visualized the inside of his closet, where lights flickered and his mother’s scream tore into his hiding spot. The glow of her green eyes would still perforate through the cracks of the closet door.

She took pills like that. They didn’t help his mother’s “condition.”

Extra saliva had built up in Luke’s mouth. He swallowed it away. “Do you… see prophecies? Vision of the future” he asked carefully. He never wanted to be near someone that could do that again.

Jack blinked, looking confused. “No. I see monsters,” he said.

“And your parents had you medicated for that?” Phil asked, anger making his voice shake.

“Well, yea. I see monsters,” Jack said.

“Di Immortales,” Phil muttered. “This is why kids should never tell their parents anything.”

Luke’s fingers began to shake around his Coke bottle. This was just like his mother. This is why the gods needed someone to put them in their place. “And your dad just let that happen? Let you think you’d lost your mind and didn’t claim you or send any help?”

Like Hermes did to Luke and his mother.

When May Castellan did take pills and didn’t have a fit, she was practically brain-dead: lethargic, drooling, and dizzy. Luke tried not to picture Jack like that. He wondered how recently the guy had taken his medication.

Jack stared at the table, the red-rims around his eyes growing more pronounced. “Steve was the one who drove me to the doctor. He said a boy my age shouldn’t be afraid of silly things like monsters.”

That must have been his stepdad.

“That’s not who he means,” Flynn said. She brought Jack’s pill box back over. Her duffle bag rattled with his extra pill bottles. “We can’t go back to Jack’s house and this is the first place the cops will look for him.”

For the first time since Flynn had opened her mouth to talk that day, Luke felt back in control. He knew how to do this pitch and now he knew, for sure, that he wanted these two at camp. He’d have to talk to Kronos to make sure Flynn couldn’t usurp control, but Luke guessed that Kronos could easily read through her parlor trick. “The cops won’t find Jack or you with us. We’re small right now, but we’re expanding. There’s food and shelter. We’re working to take down the gods so this—” He gestured to Jack. “—doesn’t happen again.”

Flynn nodded. She glanced around the small apartment. “I’ll need to come back once a week and bring Jack.” She stated it as a nonnegotiatiable fact.

Luke wasn’t used to demigods wanting to see their family. He, Annabeth, and Thalia had run away from neglect and abuse. If neither of Flynn nor Jack had run away yet, and Jack was this at-home with Flynn’s Nainai—whatever that was, grandmother?—then she must have been alright. Flynn and Jack would have to worry about private investigators and the cops early on, but he didn’t see why they couldn’t orchestrate their return. “We’ll make it work.”

Flynn gripped the strap of her duffle bag so tightly, her knuckles turned white. “So, we join your squad to kill our godly parents. Do we need to wear jackets or something that’ll make us targets to monsters?” She glanced down at his bright orange sweatshirt.

Luke wanted to punch Chiron in the face. “No. We work with monsters that are under a truce. You just need to swear loyalty to Kronos and forsake the Greek gods.”

Jack’s lip trembled. “Swear loyalty to a false god to work with demons?”

Luke wanted to laugh. That sounded like a pitch that Thalia would have signed up for in a heartbeat.

“Technically he’s a Titan.” Phil blew on his tea. “And they don’t really like being called ‘demons.’”

“If you’re swearing yourself to him, what happens to your soul after you die?” Jack asked.

Luke opened his mouth. He paused and glanced at Phil.

“Huh,” Phil said, “I mean, I turn into a daisy no matter how this shit goes down.”

“You swore fealty to a deity without asking what it would do to your soul?” Flynn asked skeptically.

“Once we take over, it’ll all be fine,” Luke said, shaking the thought off. He didn’t know why they were so worried. They were talking about vengeance: here and now. Sorting out the Underworld could come once they had disposed of Hades and his crew.

Jack set his Cola down and hugged himself again. They would definitely need to come back to the whole religion thing later.

Flynn stared at Luke.

“Who do you think is my godly parent?” she asked slowly.

“Oh, with the power in your voice and that physique?” Phil snorted and took a sip of his tea. “Definitely Aphrodite.”

Jack glared at him.

Luke had to agree.

On the wall, Luke had been trying not to look at a picture of a fifth grade girl. Although the distortion of features made it hard to tell, Luke was fairly certain that girl was a younger Flynn. Even at age ten, she looked beautiful and had facial features that would probably have matured to make her gorgeous.

It took Luke every ounce of self-control not to ask her if a hydra had spit acid in her face before she went to middle school.

Flynn frowned. She glanced back towards the door with the opera music, her expression blank and eyes hollow. “The goddess of sex and beauty, right?”

“Yea. Love, beauty, pleasure,” Luke said, remembering how Silena scolded the boys and reminded them to leave the last one out when talking to younger campers.

Flynn released a laugh, one that contained no mirth and had no smile. Luke felt like he’d missed out on a joke that he didn’t want to hear. His curiosity about her scars vanished.

“Yea,” she said, “I’ll help you kill my mom.”

The conviction in her voice made Luke grin. He stood and held out a hand. “Let’s restart this. I’m Luke Castellan.”

Flynn gripped his hand tight enough to make him wince. “Flynn Davidson.”

Jack swallowed. Uncertainly, he stood. He started to reach his hand out, flinched, then fully extended it. Luke took it. Jack had a gentle, comforting handshake, especially when compared to Flynn’s. “Jack Flash.”

Phil stood up and pinched his shirt like he was wearing overalls. “And I’m Phil: the trainer of fucking heroes.”

Flynn scoffed and nodded to the exit. She made no indication of needing to say goodbye when she said, “Let’s get out of here and fuck up our parents.”

And, with that, Luke formed a partnership that would last their entire (very short) lives. He just didn’t realize how soon after things would start to go wrong.

***

Thank you for the read! I hope you enjoyed the introduction to Luke’s elite squad! Stay tuned next week for The Versatility of a Guitar String, where you get to see what happened at Camp Half-Blood when Percy was looking for the Master Bolt. Follow Luke and Jack as they go undercover to recruit more half-bloods and Phil gets to juggle a corpse—wait—Phil, that’s unsanitary. Please wear gloves!

Footnote:

[1] I’m home! Good morning, grandmother. Jack is here, along with two of my friends.

#Tales from Mount Othrys #TFMO #PJO #Percy Jackson and the Olympians #HOO #Heroes of Olympus #fanfiction #Take off your shoes or death by angry grandmother #luke castellan #phil #Flynn #jack #The fellowship has formed!

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timetravelingheart · 6 years ago

Text

My Side of the Fence Chapter Nineteen: A.M. Imagine

It had been nearly three weeks and Savannah had done absolutely nothing.

Actually, that’s not entirely accurate if you consider active avoidance to be something, which Connor definitely did not, but Savannah herself thought the idea had some merit to it. She was actively choosing not to contact Auston and she was actively choosing to distance herself in an attempt to stay the course and not give in to her feelings. Connor was trying, and failing, to get her to talk to Auston, so Savannah had resorted to pretty much avoiding him as well.

It was nearing the end of November and she hadn’t spoken to Auston in nearly three weeks. It was the longest they had gone without seeing or speaking to one another since the day they met. Fortunately, being an Olympic athlete was all about willpower and mental endurance, so Savannah was well-versed in not acting out on her emotions.

Not speaking to Auston also meant that she hadn’t interacted with any other players on his team, included very limited interactions with Mitch who was told by Stephanie in no uncertain terms that he was not allowed to meddle. Mitch was unimpressed to say the least, especially as he watched his best friend grow moodier and moodier by the day, but he knew better than to ignore both Steph and Savannah’s wishes - that was double the wrath that he definitely did not want to endure. Stephanie was torn between wanting to support her best friend and wanting to kidnap her and lock her in a room with Auston until they both finally admitted their feelings for and to one another.

All of the tension Savannah felt every time she woke up and stepped foot outside her apartment led her to taking an early escape to the family home in Kingston. She told her parents that she just felt like spending more family time with them during the holiday season given how many years she spent away from them. Her dad bought it partially, knowing that something else spurred this decision but not really caring if it meant he got to spend more time with his baby girl.

Her mom, on the other hand, was an entirely different story. Sylvia had long suspected that Savannah was hiding something from her and had been patiently waiting for her daughter to seek her out whenever she felt it was necessary. Raising an Olympian had given Sylvia a new perspective on motherhood. While she was almost too involved in the decisions of her older children, who still constantly sought her out for advice, she had the polar opposite experience with Savannah who lived and trained a great distance away from her protective eye. It was a tough learning curve, but eventually Sylvia learned to respect the space her youngest child needed to work through any problems or challenges and trusted that if she really needed her mom, she would come to her.

And so, as they were bundled up in this November cold-front hitting Ontario out shopping for Christmas presents, Sylvia waited patiently for the issue to come up, opting instead to talk about the Christmas special Savannah would be skating in the following week and Christmas plans with their extended family.

With large bags in tow, they stopped at a nearby cafe for hot beverages and to give their tired feet a rest. Setting up shop in the back corner of the cafe next to the fireplace and with a beautiful view of the snow falling outside, they sat in comfortable silence before Savannah spoke.

“I think I’m in love,” she stated, but not in a lovestruck happy way. She sounded downright disappointed and Sylvia had to bite back a knowing smile. Savannah hated anything that moved her out of her comfort zone when it came to relationships, and it was clear she was about as uncomfortable as Sylvia had ever seen her.

Oh, boy, she thought. Her youngest child was definitely in love.

“Well,” Sylvia took a sip from her mug and then set it down, resting back in her comfy chair, “you don’t sound very happy about that.”

“Let’s just say that it was unexpected and entirely unplanned,” Savannah responded, mirroring her mother’s actions subconsciously. She had always admired her mother. Sweet and kind, but unsuspectingly strong and determined. Whiskey in a teacup, her grandmother, who herself was a firecracker, used to always say. Savannah came from a long line of strong women who didn’t find strength in doing everything alone, but in leaning on other women and supporting other women. Savannah was used to doing things for herself, knowing that in her business it was important to always look out for yourself and watch your back. But being around her mother reminded her of just how much strength she drew from their connection, from their love for one another. She was in need of that strength today.

“Honey, love is usually unexpected and unplanned. That’s what makes it so wonderful.”

“That’s also what makes it so terrifying.”

Sylvia smiled sympathetically and reached over to squeeze Savannah’s hand three times. “This is about a certain tall, handsome, leading goal scorer Maple Leaf player, isn’t it?”

Savannah simply nodded.

“We should return the gifts you bought your dad today. You dating Auston Matthews will be the best Christmas gift he’s ever received!”

“Mom!” Savannah gasped. Her mother laughed.

“Oh honey, I’m teasing,” she leaned back in her seat, proud of herself for having predicted this a while back. “So what is the problem?”

“The problem is that I’m pretty sure I’m in love with him and I can’t be with him.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” Savannah sighed, tired of explaining herself to everyone. “I need to focus on this quad and being in a relationship is a distraction. I can’t give everything to it and it’s not fair to him to not have the girlfriend he deserves.”

“What does he have to say about this?” Sylvia asked, choosing to tackle one issue in her daughter’s statement at a time.

“Nothing,” Savannah shrugged. Sylvia raised a skeptical eyebrow. Savannah relented. “He says that I shouldn’t assume I know what he thinks he deserves but he also said that us keeping things casual was fine with him.”

“So you’ve been sleeping with him?”

“Mom!” Savannah gasped again, mortified at her mother’s bluntness.

“Oh, honey, I’m not that old-fashioned,” Sylvia waved her had dismissively. “So explain to me how sleeping with him is not a distraction but a relationship with him is?”

“If it’s just casual, then there’s no real investment from either of us which means we can’t hurt one another, which then means I won’t be distracted when it all inevitably ends, as it now has.”

“But you seem pretty upset right now for someone who just ended something that wasn’t supposed to mean anything.”

Savannah paused, taking a sip from her now lukewarm tea. She knew her logic was flawed the entire time, but it meant that she got to have Auston and still keep him at a distance, telling herself that she wouldn’t get hurt this way. And now nearly three weeks without him, she was starting to see how wrong she was.

“Bear with me here because I know this is a radical idea,” her mother started conspiratorially. “You could just tell him how you feel and see what happens. It could all work out. Crazier things have happened.”

"You make it sound so simple.”

“Oh,” Sylvia laughed, decades of relationship experience behind her, “it definitely is anything but simple. But you can’t let your life be dictated by your fear of getting hurt. If this boy feels about you the same way you feel about him, he is going to do everything in his power to not hurt you.” Savannah opened her mouth to speak but Sylvia raised her hand to stop her. “But, and I hate to tell you this munchkin, you will hurt each other. You probably already have. It’s about the intention behind that hurt and how you recover from it - together. You just have to give him a chance.”

“I don’t even know if he feels the same way about me,” Savannah held her cool palms to her sore eyes to soothe them.

Sylvia moved from her seat to sit on the edge of Savannah’s chair, wrapping her daughter up in a side hug, her chin resting on the top of Savannah’s head.

“Oh, honey,” she whispered, and all at once she understood everything. “The question isn’t if he feels the same - it’s if you’re willing to let him love you for who you are, flaws and fears and all.” She felt Savannah sigh in their embrace. “I guess there’s only one way for you to find out now, isn’t there?”

Savannah nodded, squeezing her mother closer to her body.

“Oh, and honey?” Savannah looked up at her mom, seeing the smirk teasing at the corners of her mouth. “Figure it out before Christmas? I can’t wait to tell your dad!”

“MOM!”

___

Back in Toronto, Auston was miserable, to put it lightly.

The first week following their ‘break-up’ if you can call it that, he didn’t try to contact Savannah at all. He knew that she often needed her space and he felt it was best to give it to her. He thought maybe she would miss him enough to come around and reach out to him. By the second week, he realized that he had greatly underestimated Savannah’s willpower. Or, maybe, and this was a hard idea to swallow, maybe Savannah really didn’t feel as deeply for him as he felt for her. It was that idea that kept him from messaging her that second week.

As the third week started, he was just becoming angry. Angry with her for writing him off as if what they had didn’t matter. Angry with himself for not fighting harder for her and telling her how he felt. Angry with the fans for posting those photos and speculating about their personal lives. Angry with Mitch who refused to talk to Savannah for him. He was just angry all the time.

And so that was how Auston found himself at Patrick’s house with Mitch, this time after decorating gingerbread houses with the four Marleau boys. After the boys had gone to bed, Christina also retired to bed, leaving Patrick, Mitch, and Auston to clean up the mess in the kitchen.

Mitch and Patty had been making small talk while Auston silently collected extra candy pieces from the houses and wiped down the counter. Catching one another’s eye, Mitch nodded at Patty, urging him to go through with the plan they had discussed earlier.

“So when do you plan on telling Savannah that you’re in love with her?” Patty skipped the pleasantries. Mitch gawked at him. This was definitely not the plan. The plan was to ease into it. Patty shrugged. It was time these two figured their shit out.

Auston dropped down at one of the stools at the kitchen island and buried his head in his arms on the counter, groaning loudly. Mitch and Patty shared a smirk at their friend’s expense; they had to admit that while the back and forth between the two had been frustrating to watch, it was mildly funny just how difficult they were both making it.

Auston lifted his head and slouched back in the chair.

"Not any time soon, that’s for sure,” he shrugged. “She made it pretty clear that she couldn’t see me and hasn’t even tried to contact me in almost three weeks. She called what we were doing ‘just friends and sex’ and made it look pretty easy too. Why would I tell her how I feel now?”

"Because maybe if you told her how you really felt, and tell her that you lied, it might change things?” Mitch moved to sit in the chair next to Auston.

“What did you lie about?” Patty asked, as he leaned on the counter across from the two younger men.

“After Naz’s birthday, Sav asked him if he was still okay with them just keeping things casual and he said yes,” Mitch offered, when it became obvious that Auston didn’t feel like speaking. “Actually, he said ‘it’s not more than that’ for him, and she believed him.”

Patty didn’t say anything, and was somehow able to keep a straight face even though on the inside he was cringing. Lies very rarely helped any situation, especially one with Savannah, who already had trust issues. Auston sighed, catching Patty’s attention.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he felt like he had to defend himself. “I shouldn’t have lied to her, and I agree. But it’s not a total lie. I am okay with it as long as it means I am with her. The rest will come in time. I don’t need a label.”

“But it’s also not just casual for you, right?” Patty asked. “I mean, it’s been about more than that from the very beginning for you, hasn’t it?” Auston simply nodded, not knowing what else he could say. Patty had a plan. “Look, you definitely shouldn’t have lied to her, but I get why you did it. Are you really okay with it though? Don’t you think you deserve to be with someone who shows you how much they want to be with you? Who doesn’t make you feel like you have to prove yourself?”

“What do you mean?” Auston asked, now on edge and not liking the direction this supposed pep talk was taking.

“It just seems like from the beginning she’s been hot and cold with you, letting you in just to back off again, putting you through the ringer. It seems like you spend most of your time just trying to wade through what she’s actually been willing to give you. What makes her worth that?”

Mitch and Auston stared at him in shock. Mitch was not expecting him to go off on Savannah like that, but when he caught the subtle wink Patty threw in his direction, he knew what was happening.

“What makes her worth that? Are you serious?” Auston could feel his anger building again, but didn’t really want to take it out on his friend and a man he respected.

“I’m serious. Make me understand why someone who makes you question how they feel about you is worth it.”

“Sav is the most amazing person I’ve ever met. She is the most kind-hearted and generous person. Do you know how many charities she’s involved in and how many under the radar things she does for other people without even being asked? She is also unexpectedly hilarious and sarcastic, always ready with a clever response. She is obviously beautiful, but that’s not even what I love most about her. She makes me a better person. She pushes me to be better at communicating with my family and friends, always reminding me to call home and check in with people. She makes me think about social issues that I would usually just tune out because I don’t feel smart enough to get involved. If I’m wrong or uninformed, she doesn’t act like I’m some dumb hockey player, but she’ll take the time to explain things and will send me articles that will help. She also drives me absolutely insane with how stubborn she is and yet I still just want to be around her all the time. It sounds so stupid, but she makes me feel lighter and warmer and just...happy. Like I can do anything with her by my side,” he paused, shaking his head at himself. He really was a goner for her.

“And yeah, I’m so fucking scared all the time of doing something that will make her run away. I don’t even know if she feels the same or if I’ve just made up all of those moments with her where I believed she did, trying to make myself feel better. But man, when she’s actually let me in, it’s meant the world to me. I get where her fears come from and why she holds herself at a distance. I get it and I want to prove to her that she doesn’t have to do that. She deserves the world and yet refuses to ask for it. Man, don’t even ask me if she’s worth it. She’s worth everything.”

Mitch stared at his best friend in shock, mouth hanging open. Patty just nodded simply, standing up straight.

"All right, that was exactly what I was hoping you would say,” he rubbed his hands together. “So now that I know that, I feel like I can tell you the next part in good faith.” He paused for effect, watching as the two men stared at him expectantly. “Savannah is in love with you. Today, right now. Not later, not in time. Now. And I absolutely do think she is worth it. So now we have to figure out what you’re going to do to get her back.”

Mitch could not have been more enamoured with the guy who was a hero of his who had quickly become one of his best friends. Don’t ever say Patrick Marleau is only good at hockey.

“How do you know she feels the same?” Auston asked, his own doubts crowding his mind. His doubts had immobilized him, keeping him from reaching out to Savannah and tell her just how much he loved her and wanted everything with her. How could Patty be so sure?

“Let’s just say it’s obvious to some of us,” Patty shrugged dismissively, but relented once he read the skeptical looks being directed at him. “And, Christina has taken a sort of vested interest in your relationship and is the one who told me that she knew Savannah loved you.”

Mitch and Auston laughed in surprise.

"So you let me think you had all of these pearls of wisdom and all along they’ve been coming from your wife?” Auston asked, surprised and yet also not after the past couple of years of getting to know the lady of the Marleau house.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Patrick moved back to finish loading the dishwasher, leaving the two younger men to just shake their heads at one another, knowing they still had so much to learn.

#auston matthews #auston matthews imagine #auston matthews fanfiction #auston matthews writing #nhl fanfiction #nhl imagines #nhl writing #hockey fan fiction #hockey imagines #hockey writing

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theroyalwords · 6 years ago

Text

Teen Olympians, Ch 31

-Apollo-

He was going to lock her up. That seemed like the only way he could keep Cas safe.

She ran off once again, leaving the stupid school to do some kind of ridiculous magical errand. She kept saying that it was nothing, that she could see when they would attack, but something in his gut told him differently. Cassia was taking risks, risks she shouldn’t have to chance with an immortal by her side. Apollo was good for something after all. He couldn’t fight the other pantheon, but his presence would scare a good number of them off. But he couldn’t do that when the girl who needed protection ran around like a hunter seeking the Tessumian fox.

The bell rang signaling the end of the day. Apollo went straight to Cas’s locker hoping that she made it back in time. The only thing at her locker was a note that had her now familiar writing on it. Apollo moved it from the slats and tore it open.

You need to stop worrying. I’ve snuck around for years now. By the time you will read this, which should be around 3:15, I’ll be back at the apartment. You can yell at me there.

-Cassia

He made the letter vanish between his hands, turning it to a fine dust that scattered in the air. Since his family had split to do whatever they needed to do today, that meant Apollo had the ride home to himself. It was relaxing, letting the windows down and driving as fast as he wanted. No mortal cops would pull him over. While most of their magic had been limited as part of their punishment, he still had power over mortal minds. That and disappearing whenever he wanted to make avoiding mortals easier. Apollo hardly had any quiet time in his existence, so when he got it, he used it. It gave him time to think about Cassia. Part of Apollo kind of admired her tenacity. She stood up to him without any fear, which was rare from a mortal.

Maybe he was approaching it from the wrong way. He didn’t want to yell at her like her parents did. He understood that the path she chose was the best option, but it still left him wary. It only takes a thought, less than a mere second for the future to change.

As soon as his chariot was parked, Apollo vanished and appeared before the door that led to his study. The wards wouldn’t stop him or Artemis from appearing. He gave it a quick series of taps before letting himself in.

Cas was staring at the wall with his arms crossed over her chest. It was covered in notes and pictures, many of them the security measures she had spent the last week researching. She plotted out how to get past all of them. Her planning was as close to flawless that a mortal could come up with something Athena even noted. Apollo had offered some suggestions, which she took in stride. Even Artemis, although begrudgingly, admitted she was good at coming up with a game plan.

“Just so you know, I didn’t even see one Egyptian while I was out today,” Cass explained as she added a note to the board. She held a crystal in her hand, which she carefully set on the shelf below.

“Is that what you had to leave to get?” Apollo asked as he nodded his head towards the crystal.

“Yes. It will help fuel the spell to lift the disorientation enchantment. Getting hit with that would royally suck and most likely be the thing that kills me.”

“You should have told me.”

“Told you what?”

“That you were leaving the school with no protection.”

Cas glanced towards him before rearranging some of the notes. “I did tell you.”

Apollo rolled his eyes. “Yes, you mentioned it in passing and the next thing I know, you’ve vanished from class without a goodbye.”

“I had a window that worked to my advantage. It would have been riskier if I waited.”

“That doesn’t matter, Cassia.”

“It does matter. There were no possibilities as long as I went in that window,” she huffed. “It was the safest option. I’m not a child, Apollo. I know what I’m doing.”

“Wrong. There are always possibilities. You are putting too much stock in your visions lately. The future can change at any moment.” She turned towards him then, her brows raised.

“I know that.”

“Do you?”

Cassia heaved a long sigh. “I do. Believe me, of all the mortals that are involved with immortal shenanigans, I probably know it the best. I’m not going to change my life and stay scared because of small possibilities. That’s what makes life worth it.” She paused for just a moment and looked down at the floor. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

Apollo took a step closer to her. There was barely a foot of space between them. Apollo knew that Cassia could and would take care of herself. She was smart, resourceful, and beautifully determined. She looked up at him, her eyes focused on his face. Her expression was neutral, but there was a tension in her eyes that Apollo hadn’t seen before. He placed his hands on her shoulders. “I get that. I want you to take care of yourself. I don’t want you to take unnecessary risks when you have help available.”

“And how am I supposed to do that? Every day is a risk until I get this accomplished.”

“You could take me with you.”

“Why would you do that? I already told you, if the Egyptians find out you are helping me, they will involve your father. I’m not risking--”

Apollo placed his hand against her cheek, stopping her mid-sentence. A blush crept up underneath his hand, making the couple of freckles she had stand out.

“I’ll take that chance. I know how to be covert when I want to as well, Cas.”

“If Zeus finds out-“

“He won’t,” Apollo swore. “Check me if you don’t believe me.”

Cas studied his face for a minutes before her eyes drifted close. Apollo could sense the chaos behind them, the never-ending visions colliding the future with the now. Her eyes squinted just a bit before opening to that violet expanse.

“It’s almost impossible,” she admitted quietly. “It’s a small chance if you go with whatever you are thinking of now.”

“Exactly,” Apollo agreed. “I’m not asking you to stop, Cassia. That would be like telling a volcano not to erupt when it clearly is. But you do have power, far more than you know. That makes you a target. I’d like to see that potential start to grow. But you need help sometimes. I’m asking you to take mine.”

Cas stared at him for a moment, her teeth worrying against her bottom lip. Apollo was almost surprised she wasn’t drawing blood.

“You think I have potential? That sounds an awful lot like you want to keep the insanity inside my head.”

“Do you want your visions completely gone?” Apollo thought he knew the answer, but Cas hesitated. There was something hidden in her expression, anxiety or fear, he wasn’t sure which.

“As much as I hate them, I’ve never been without them. It’s been a part of me for so long, to not have them…”

“It would feel like a part of you was missing.”

Cas nodded her head. “I just wish people would believe me. Is it all or nothing? You remove my curse by taking away my gift?”

Apollo sat down in one of the chairs near his desk. “It’s one option, yes. But it is not the only option. It would be the safest, though.”

“Like cutting off a dead limb,” she mumbled. “I don’t want that.”

“Then, that option is off the table. I’m going to try to get you what you need. Let’s get the Egyptian pantheon off your back, and then we can discuss the possible ways to reverse it. I don’t want to unknowingly make it worse.”

“That would be bad,” Cas admitted with a grin. “I think we make our move in three days when the full moon rises. Can I walk through the plan with you?”

“Let’s hear it,” Apollo stated. He hoped that whatever she came up with wasn’t the most dangerous way, but knowing Cassia Woodard, she would make it as harrowing as possible.

#teen olympians #my writing #ortemis

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popmybrains · 7 years ago

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Panophobia - Richie Tozier x Reader - Part One

"Panophobia or the fear of everything phobia might sound bizarre, but it does exist in the list of non-specific phobias. It is known by other names like Omniphobia or Pantophobia. Panto stands for 'all or everything' in the Greek language."

A/N: Panophobia is a fanfiction series I wrote for my archive of our own, but will now also be posted here on my tumblr. I also have to write in short amounts because I have carpal tunnel it and it limits my time allowed to write.

Warnings: Trigger Scene, Swearing, Richie’s humor.

Summary: Meet (Y/N) Kaspbrak's one of the biggest wussys of all time. It sucks when you’re scared of everything and anything. But the time comes when your father is fed up with your hiding and pushes you outside, leaving you to fend for yourself alone. But it only gets worse when Henry Bowers catches sight of a young small girl he's never seen before. So what happens when you run into Eddie, alongside three other boys you've never meet before? You join in on their summer adventures of trying to kill a demon clown who's terrorizing the town of Derry of course. Man panophobia sucks ass.

Part One

The last bell of the day rang, signaling the end of school and the start of summer, three boys busted through their class door, walking down the crowded hallway as other students started pouring in, seeming to already have a conversation when the fourth boy ran up behind them, taking his place beside of the shortest in the group and the one who seemed to be the leader of the group, as they walked passed another group of boys who just seemingly glared at everyone who walked passed, especially the four boys, when the one with thick rimmed glasses turned to the other three.

"Do you think they'll sign my year book? ’Dear Richie, sorry for taking a hot steaming dump in your backpack last month. Have a good summer'." He chuckled looking at the others boys who seemingly rolled their eyes at him.

"Hey guys, you want to stop buy my house after school? Bill got a new croquet set we can use it there." Said the boy with curly hair wearing a kippah, pointing to the boy next to him, as they all turned down the flight of stairs the entrance of the building coming into view as they walked out the school towards the trash cans that were in the front near the rode.

"Sorry Stan, I can't make it I promised told my mom I'd go see my cousin after school today, her parents are getting tired of her being locked inside the house and not making any friends." The shortest one side, whereas Richie took it upon himself to make a comment about this "unknown cousin" of Eddie's.

"You know you keep mentioning this cousin of yours Eddie Spaghetti, yet we never get to meet her, does she tickle your pickle?" Richie laughed as they made their way to the trash cans to empty their schools bags, the shortest one now known as Eddie stopped what he was doing to turn and look at Richie as the other two boys Stanley and Bill emptied their bags. Bill turning to look at Eddie with his now empty backpack. “H-h-he has a p-p-point. W-why can’t we meet -h-h-her?” He asked.

"Are you fucking stupid? (Y/N) would have a fucking aneurysm if brought three boys over, especially three new boys. I might as well be signing her death certificate." Eddie screeched at Richie as Stan just emptied his bag muttering something along the lines of how that was the best feeling ever. It wasn't until Bill turned to Eddie curious about Eddie's cousin.

"Www-what does ss-sshe look like?" He stuttered out, looking at Eddie curious to hear his response and explain his cousin to himself and the other two boys beside them as he placed his now empty bag back onto his shoulders. With a heavy sigh of defeat Eddie placed his now also empty bag on his shoulders as he turned to walk away with the three boys behind him catching up. "Well she has (H/L) which is a shade of (H/C). And I'm not that much taller than her she comes up to me about here." He said motioning to the hand that was now at his shoulder. "It also doesn't help that she's fucking terrified of everything that walks and breaths. She had to scream and beg for my uncle to homeschool her when they moved to Derry about a couple months ago." He mumbled as the three finally caught up.

"Why is she so fucking scared of everything." Richie lifted his hand to push up his glasses as the boys went to the bike racks and grabbed their bikes. “My mom said it’s called panophobia, which means the fear of everything or some shit like that.” Eddie mentioned waving his hand as he put his bike lock in his bag. "Why not let her met us and let her base her own opinion first before doing it for her." The thoughtful Stan mentioned as Eddie had a look of doubt in his eyes, Richie new just a little more pushing and he would break and take them all to this cousin of his. "Yeah come on Eddie Spaghetti, take us to this mystical cousin of yours named (Y/N)."

"P-please." Bill finished looked at the Eddie who grunted and started walking away from them. "Fine come on then, but you have to listen to exactly what I say or she will be scared of you." He huffed as the boys started following him.

(Y/N) let out a squeal as her father started pushing her to the door. “You can’t keep hiding away from the outside in your room any long!” His voice boomed as he opened the front door and shoved you outside. “When you asked to be home schooled I accepted on the condition you finally make some damn friends. And you haven’t had a single one beside your own cousin. (Y/N), Eddie will be over soon until then I want you to stay outside!” He screamed as he slammed the door in her face.

Letting out a silent wail she turned around and sat on the steps of her porch, huddled next to the railing while she hugged herself, mentally deciding that here was where she would wait for Eddie.

It was until about 10 minutes later (Y/N) had noticed a car, slowly driving up and near her house. She watched as a blonde wearing a mullet lifted himself up from the hole in the car hood and shouted in her direction. “Hey babe, why not come in for a ride with us?” He chuckled as his friends starting wolf whistling from the car, one of them beeping the horn. Cheering him on as he climbed out and (Y/N) got up while she had the chance, quickly speeding away. Where to she didn’t know but away from blonde boy behind her who was now speeding to catch up with her. (Y/N) probably only made it about half down the street before she felt someone grab her wrist and jolt her back.

“Hey come on back babe what’s the rush?” He whispered in your ear as he slammed your back into his chest, as he brought both of her wrists into one of his hands, letting his free own drift down her chest and to the hem of her shorts slowly slipping in. (Y/N) started screaming hoping to get anyone’s attention but she watched as a car drove by slowly, as the occupants just stared out at her and the boy at her back as you struggled.

(Y/N) screamed, praying Eddie would magically come biking his way down your street. In (Y/N)’s trashing, she managed to turn her head just right and bit down into his arm that was in front of her, slowly slipping down into her shorts . With a shriek, he dropped her screaming curse word after curse word. (Y/N) managed to pull herself up and run away down the street like she were part of an Olympian track team, turning a corner and quickly jumping through back yards, making it a few streets over.

(Y/N) didn’t look where she was going until she turned a corner and slammed into a chest, stumbling back she fell once again, landing on her ass. Crawling backwards horrified she stared at a group of three boys holding their bikes. Squeaking she crawled back still on her hands and ass she heard a fourth boy from behind the group.

“(Y/N) Kaspbrak! What are you doing out here.”

#richie tozier x reader #richie tozier x you #bill denbrough x reader #bill denbrough #beverly marsh x reader #beverly marsh #eddie kaspbrak x reader #eddie kaspbrak #finn wolfhard #finn wolfhard x reader #finn wolfhard x you #mike wheeler x reader #mike wheeler x you #mike wheeler #pennywise x reader #pennywise #henry bowers #henry bowers x reader

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dumbledearme · 6 years ago

Text

chapter two—a safe place

read Child of Land and Sea here

Act I — Storm At Sea

Part II — Look at this trove, treasures untold. How many wonders can one summer camp hold?

The gods existed. That's what they were trying to convince her of. The gods existed, they were out there watching over people. The gods were out there watching over people and yet none of them had lifted a finger to save Andy's mom. Sally was dead, gone, vaporized into smoke by a monster that couldn't be real. Andy's head was spinning and they just wouldn't stop talking about the damn gods!

Andy, her mother and Grover had been followed by an enormous beast, half bull half man. Sally had called it Pasiphae's son or whatever, but the only word going through Andy's mind had been Minotaur. Only they wouldn't let her say it out loud. Andy didn't know what to do, what to think. There was a mythical creature following them, trying to kill them, her best friend was a goat—okay, a satyr, as he patiently explained—and her mother seemed to find everything about that situation quite normal. Sally even admitted to have expected such an attack.

Then the bull-man grunted, pawing the ground and charged toward them. Andy could still feel the earth moving under her feet. She could still smell the rotten meat that exhaled from it. But the fear couldn't compare to the feeling of emptiness of when the monster grabbed her mother and turned her to dust.

Andy had lost her mind then. She had attacked the monster with all her might. And somehow, she had managed to destroy it.

After several days in some sort of coma, Andy woke up to find out that none of that had been a dream. It had all happened. Grover told her she was in Camp Half-Blood, a safe place, the place her father had wanted to send her to. The place Sally didn't want her to go to.

Grover took her to the Great House where Andy was introduced to none other than her former Latin teacher, Mr. Brunner, only now he was a centaur going by the name of Chiron.

As if that wasn't weird enough, Andy was forced to sit down for a game of pinochle with the camp's director, Mr. D, also known as Dionysus, son of Zeus, etc etc. Andy wanted to pass out to stop herself from hearing any more of their crazy-talk. They told her the gods existed, they kept repeating it, as if the more they said it the faster she would come to accept it. But Andy couldn't accept that, she found herself completely unable to. Too much craziness and not enough time to process it.

The god of wine apparently had been banished to care for Camp Half-Blood because of a wood nymph he hadn't been able to stay away from. Nothing new there. Boys will be (stupid) boys. His father had declared her off limits, but that wasn't enough to stop Dionysus who was now forced to stay here, forbidden to have a sip of wine.

Then they told her the gods of Olympus were now here in America. They gave her a perfectly good explanation that Andy barely heard. And after that, Chiron invited her for a tour which Andy thought was a terrible idea, since every single one of the other campers kept staring at her and whispering. Most of them were older than Andy and their satyr friends were bigger than Grover. They all wore the same orange CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirt. Andy wasn't shy, but the way they stared made her feel extremely uncomfortable. Trying to take off the edge she was feeling, she asked Chiron about Grover.

"He has big dreams," Chiron told her. "Perhaps bigger than are reasonable. To reach his goal, he must first demonstrate great courage by succeeding as a keeper, finding a new camper and bringing him safely to Half-Blood Hill."

"But he did that."

"I might agree with you," Chiron said. "But it is not my place to judge. Dionysus and the Council of Cloven Elders must decide. I'm afraid they might not see this assignment as a success. After all, Grover lost you in New York. Then there's the unfortunate... ah... fate of your mother. And the fact that Grover was unconscious when you dragged him over the property line. The Council might question whether this shows any courage on Grover's part."

"But... he'll get a second chance, won't he?"

Chiron winced. "I'm afraid that was Grover's second chance, Andy. The Council was not anxious to give him another, either, after what happened the first time, seven years ago. Olympus knows, I advised him to wait longer before trying again. He's still so small for his age..."

"How old is he?"

"Oh, twenty-eight."

"Whaaaat!"

"Satyrs mature half as fast as humans, Andy."

"Oh, that's unfortunate."

"Quite," Chiron agreed. "At any rate, Grover is a late bloomer, even by satyrs standards, and not yet very accomplished at woodland magic. Alas, he was anxious to pursue his dreams. Perhaps now he will find some other career..."

"That isn't fair. What happened the first time? Was it really so bad?"

Chiron looked away quickly and the matter was ended. He would not discuss it with Andy. It was none of her business.

Finally, Chiron showed Andy the cabins. There were twelve of them, nestled in the woods by the lake. They were arranged in a U, with two at the base and five in a row on either side. Chiron explained that each of the cabins represented one of the twelve Olympian gods but Andy was more preoccupied in wondering why some of them looked empty. But before she could ask Chiron that, a blond boy came their way. He was tall, probably Andy's age, and very athletic looking. With his deep tan and his smooth yellow hair, he was exactly the type of guy who'd never glance at Andy twice. When he got closer, Andy saw that his eyes were gray, like storm clouds; pretty but extremely intimidating.

"This is Anthony," Chiron told Andy. "He nursed you back to health."

Andy tried to smile. "Hey."

The boy glared at her, obviously unimpressed with what he was seeing. "You drool when you sleep," he felt the need to inform her. Andy felt the need to slap him.

"Anthony," Chiron said, "I have master's archery class at noon. Would you take Andy from here?"

"Yes, sir," the boy said very politely, as if he was a fifty year old ambassador instead of a hot teenage boy. Andy shook her head.

"We'll be putting her in cabin eleven for now," added Chiron before leaving them.

Out of all the cabins, eleven looked the most like a regular summer camp cabin and it was the most crowded one as well. There were boys and girls, more than there were beds, so there was sleeping bags spread all over the floor. Andy stood in the doorway, looking at the kids that stared at her in return.

"Well?" Anthony prompted. "Go on." So naturally, Andy tripped coming in the door and made a total fool of herself. Most of them laughed, but Anthony didn't seem to think it was funny at all. "Andy Jackson, meet cabin eleven."

"Regular or undetermined?" Somebody asked.

"Undetermined," he replied. Everyone groaned. A guy around Andy's age made his way through the crowd and if Andy had thought Anthony looked hot, it was nothing compared to this boy. He was much taller than everyone else, his muscles were impossible not to stare at and his short-cropped sandy hair went perfectly nicely with his charming smile. There was no other word to describe him but cool.

"Now, now, campers," he said, "that's what we're here for. Welcome, Andy. You can have that spot on the floor, right over there." He stopped right beside Andy and she noticed two things about him she hadn't seen from the distance. He had a unsettling thick white scar that ran from just beneath his right eye to his jaw—not that that made him any less hotter—and he wore a leather necklace with seven different-colored clay beads.

"This is Luke," Anthony said and this time his voice was full of pride. Andy wondered if she wasn't the only one charmed by the guy. "He's your counselor for now."

"For now?" Andy asked, disappointed.

"You're undetermined," explained Luke. "They don't know what cabin to put you in, so you're here. Cabin eleven takes all the newcomers, all visitors. Naturally, we would. Hermes, our patron, is the god of travelers."

"How long will I be here?"

"Until you're determined," he said.

"How long will that take?"

The campers laughed.

"Come on," said Anthony. "I'll show you the rest."

"Oh I'm pretty sure I've seen everything," Andy told him, wishing to stay with the other hot dude. Anthony grabbed her wrist and dragged her outside. Andy could hear the others still laughing.

"You have to do better than that," he told her, when they were outside.

"Excuse me?"

He rolled his eyes. Again, Andy's hand itched to hit him. "I can't believe I thought you were the one."

"What is your problem?" she snapped. "I just got here. I have absolutely no idea what is going on. My mother's dead and I killed this bull guy and—"

"You know how many of us wish they'd had your chance?" he interrupted. "To fight the Minotaur? That's what we train for."

Andy still wanted to hit him, but she thought of something she hadn't figured before. "If... If that thing I fought really was the Minotaur, the one in the stories..."

"Yes?"

"Then there's only one."

"Your point being?"

"He died, like, a gazillion years ago. Theseus or some other guy killed him in the labyrinth."

"Monsters don't die. They can be killed, but they don't die."

"Oh, yes. That makes perfect sense. Why didn't I see it before?"

Anthony sighed. "They don't have souls, like you and me. You can dispel them for a while, maybe even for a whole lifetime if you're lucky. But they are primal forces. Chiron calls them archetypes. Eventually, they reform."

Andy thought about Mrs. Dodds. "You mean, if I killed one... With a sword...?"

"The Fur—Your math teacher. Yes, she's still out there. You just made her very angry."

"How do you know about that?"

"When you're not drooling all over yourself, you talk a lot in your sleep."

Andy chose to ignore that. "You almost called her something. A Fury? They're Hades' torturers, right?"

"You shouldn't call them by name," he said nervously. "We call them the Kindly Ones, if we have to speak of them at all."

Andy scowled, "Is there anything we can say without it thundering? And why do I have to stay in cabin eleven? Why is everybody crowded there when there are several cabins empty?"

"You don't just choose a cabin. It depends on who your parents are. Or rather... parent."

"My mom is Sally Jackson," Andy heard herself say. "Or rather... was."

A shadow of sorrow crossed the boy's eyes. But only for a second. "I'm sorry about your mom, but that is not what I meant."

Andy shook her head. "I don't have... I never met him. I don't know who he is. He's probably dead."

"He's not dead."

"How do you know?"

"I know you. And you wouldn't be here if—"

"You don't know anything about me."

"No?" He raised an eyebrow. "I bet you moved around from school to school. You were kicked out of most of them. Diagnosed with dyslexia. Probably ADHD, too."

Andy tried to swallow. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Taken together, it's almost a sure sign. The letters float off the page when you read. That's because your brain is hardwired for ancient Greek. And the ADHD—you're impulsive, can't sit still in class. That's your battlefield reflexes. In a real fight, they'd keep you alive. As for the attention problems, that's because you see too much, not too little. Your senses are better than a regular mortal's. Of course the teachers want you medicated. Most of them are monsters. They don't want you seeing them for what they are."

"You sound like... like you went through the same thing?"

"All of us did. If you weren't like us, you couldn't have survived the Minotaur, much less the ambrosia and nectar."

"Ambrosia and nectar?"

"What I've been feeding you. The food and drink of the gods. I would've turned your blood to fire and your bones to sand if you were a regular kid. Face it. You're a half-blood."

Suddenly Andy realized she had a million questions to ask. But they would have to wait for a husky voice yelled, "Well! A newbie!"

Andy looked over. A big girl, twice Andy's size, walked over to them with an evil sneer. She had three other girls behind her, all big and ugly and mean looking like her, all wearing camo jackets.

"Clarisse," said Anthony. "Why don't you go polish your spear or something?"

"Sure, you nerd," the big girl said. "So I can run you through with it Friday night."

Anthony cursed her in ancient Greek. That would'd been weird enough if not for the fact that Andy understood him perfectly. "You don't stand a chance."

"We'll pulverize you," Clarisse said, but her eye twitched. "Now who's the little rat?"

Andy raised her head, though it made no difference, she was much shorter than the other girl.

"Andy Jackson," said Anthony, "meet Clarisse La Rue, daughter of Ares."

Andy blinked. "Like the war god?"

Clarisse sneered. "You got a problem with that?"

"No," Andy said, taking a step ahead. "It explains the smell."

Clarisse growled. "We got an initiation ceremony for newbies, little rat. Come on, I'll show you."

"Clarisse—" Anthony tried to say.

"Stay out of it, geek." Anthony looked unsure, but he did stay out of it. Clarisse grabbed Andy by the neck and dragged her towards a cinder-block building—the bathroom.

Andy kicked and punched but the giant girl had hands like iron. There was a line of toilets on one side and a line of shower stalls down the other. Clarisse's friends were all laughing and Anthony stood on the corner, watching. Clarisse bent Andy over her knees and started pushing her head toward the toilet bowl. It reeked. Andy strained to keep her head up. She was decided not to go into that disgusting water. Then she felt a tug in the pit of her stomach. The plumbing rumbled, the pipes shuddered. Clarisse's grip on her hair loosened.

Water shot out of the toilet, making an arc straight over her head, and the next thing she knew, Andy was sprawled on the bathroom tiles with Clarisse screaming behind her. The water hit her so hard she fell on her ass. She struggled, gasping, and ran after her friends out of there. The entire bathroom was flooded. Andy turned to find Anthony staring right at her with those stormy eyes. He seemed genuinely surprised.

Andy stood up, knees weak.

"How did you—"

"I don't know," she said, defensively.

Anthony simply stared. "I want you on my team for capture the flag," he said finally.

#andromeda #andy jackson #anthony chase #fanfic #genderbend #dfcrosas #male annabeth chase #fem percy jackson #child of land and sea #luke castellan #the little mermaid #kristen stewart #clarisse la rue

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pocket-luv101 · 7 years ago

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The Forest of Ash || Ch. 7

Fandom: Servamp Characters: Mahiru, Kuro, Licht, Hyde Pairings: KuroMahi (main), LawLicht (side)

Summary: To stop the never ending winter the gods created, Mahiru entered the Forest of Ash to steal fire and gift it to the humans. When he was caught, he thought that he would be put to death. But Kuro was far from the God of the Dead that he heard stories about. He decided to stay in the Forest of Ash with him. {KuroMahi//Greek Mythology AU}

FFNet || AO3

Ch.1 || Ch.2 || Ch.3 || Ch.4 || Ch.5 || Ch.6 || (Ch.7) || Ch.8 || Ch.9 || Ch.10 || Ch.11 || Ch.12 || Ch.13 || Ch.14 || Ch.15 || Ch.16 || Ch.17 || Ch.18 || Ch.19 || Ch.20

"Black Cat?" Mahiru sat up in his bed and rubbed his tired eyes. He felt that something was wrong and turned to the cat. It would always sleep next to him but it wasn't in its usual spot now. He spotted the cat curled up in the corner of his room and walked towards it. As he moved closer, he could see that it was shaking violently and its fur was standing up.

"What's wrong?" He spoke softly to it but it hissed at him in return. Black Cat was usually docile and sweet so he didn't know what suddenly made it aggressive. Mahiru wasn't sure if he should touch the cat or not. He thought of going to ask Kuro for help but he didn't want to leave Black Cat alone either. He noticed that it was scratching at its ears. "You're going to hurt yourself. Is something bothering you, Black Cat?"

Mahiru reached out to soothe it but then he quickly recoiled when it scratched at his hand. He moved away from Black Cat quickly when it began to transform. It turned into a lion and began to frantically roam around the small room. He stepped backwards to dodge its claws and he swore when his back hit a wall. Black Cat continued to destroy the room at random and Mahiru didn't know what to do. He shouted sternly, "Stop this, Black Cat!"

He stiffened when the lion turned its dark eyes to him. It was the first time he felt afraid of the creature since he married Kuro. Even though he was afraid, he couldn't bring himself to attack Black Cat with his fire. He doubted his clouds could protect him either so he didn't know what he should do. Mahiru's heart was racing as the lion bounded towards him. But, at the last moment, Black Cat turned away from him and ran out of the room, breaking the door in its haste.

Fear and shock still seized his body so Mahiru couldn't move and he sank to the ground. He stared at the door and took several deep breaths. Despite how unsteady his legs felt, he forced himself to stand when he saw Kuro walk into the doorway. Kuro was in front of him in moments and looked over him worriedly. "What happened in here? I heard a crash. Did Lily scare you again or—"

"Something's wrong with Black Cat," Mahiru rushed to explain what happened. His mind was still racing so he didn't know if he was making any sense. He was still confused by Black Cat's sudden change in demeanour but he ran past Kuro to chase the creature. "Did you see what direction he went? Something happened to him. We need to find him before he hurts himself or someone else."

"Wait, Mahiru!" Kuro tried to stop him. He could see how shaken Mahiru was after he was attacked by someone he trusted. He didn't know what made Black Cat become feral but he knew how dangerous it was. "You stay here where it's safe. I'll go after him. Black Cat is my shadow and I can sense him so it'll be faster if I go after him by myself."

"I'm going with you! Black Cat is my friend and I need to make sure that he's okay. We're just wasting time arguing so just take me with you." Mahiru countered and took Kuro's hand to drag him forward. They ran down the hall and followed the path of destruction Black Cat left. He frowned at the ruined garden but he forced himself to focus on finding Black Cat.

They ran out of the cave and Mahiru's eyes desperately scanned the trees for Black Cat. It could transform into any animal so he didn't know if it was still a lion or something else. Kuro could sense his dread and squeezed his hand reassuringly. The tension in his shoulders loosened a little but not entirely. Mahiru was grateful that he had Kuro with him. "We'll find him, I promise."

The two jumped when they heard a tree crashing to the ground. Kuro pulled him towards the sound. He still had reservation about taking Mahiru into a dangerous situation but he knew that he would only follow him if he forced him to return to the cave. On the other hand, he was all to familiar with how reckless Mahiru was in the name of protecting others. He could only keep Mahiru by his side and protect him.

Black Cat was trashing his body against the trees and scratching aggressively at its ear. While the other souls ran from the lion, Mahiru could see that one woman didn't. She stood in front of Black Cat and strummed her lyre as she sang softly. The siren's song was tranquil but it made Black Cat winced in pain. Strings shot out from her lyre and restrained the lion.

"Let him go!" Mahiru slipped his hand from Kuro's before he could stop him. He placed himself between the woman and Black Cat. He summoned his fire to burn the strings holding the lion. While he never took his eyes off the woman, he could hear Black Cat collapse behind him. He had to question why she would enter the Forest of Ash while she was still alive. "What do you want with Black Cat?"

"Tsubaki commanded me to fetch away the hound of Sleepy Ash." She said in a flat tone, as if she didn't have the most dangerous task imaginable. Most people were too afraid to enter Sleepy Ash's forest, let alone kidnap his loyal beast. What shocked Mahiru more was that the Olympian Tsubaki had given her the labour when Kuro had stayed uninvolved in the war.

"I'm not going to let you take him." He didn't enjoy fighting and his control over fire was still weak but he strengthened his resolve. Mahiru wanted to stop her quickly and peacefully so he tried to burn the strings on her lyre. He cursed lightly when the strings simply mended itself and the best he could do was block her attacks from reaching Black Cat again.

Kuro knew that Mahiru's power had a limit and he was worried that he would strain himself. He quickly manipulated the trees to attack the woman and distract her from Mahiru. He gestured for him to take Black Cat away while he fought and he hoped that Mahiru would listen to him for once. Shadow gathered around his hands until it materialized as claws. "Leave and tell my brother that my decision won't change."

In answer, she strummed her lyre. The song became a shrill cry and Kuro had to cover his ears. A siren's song couldn't entrance an Olympian but it could still hurt him. He dashed in front of her and used his claws to destroy her lyre. He forced the instrument from her hands and kicked it away from her. Then he grabbed her shirt and shoved her against a tree. Kuro raised his claws, "Why did Tsubaki send you?"

"I already told you. I am to capture Black Cat." She spoke in an even voice even when facing an Olympian. "But if the task becomes too dangerous, I must kill him."

Kuro's heart dropped when she began to sing a familiar chant. He quickly let her go and turned to Black Cat. A dark shadow circled the lion and he rushed to pull Mahiru away from it. While his back was turned, she took the opportunity to escape but Kuro didn't bother to stop her. The spell she cast could very well destroy his entire forest.

"Black Cat, what's wrong?" Mahiru asked worriedly. He ran his hands over its fur to find any remaining strings that could be hurting it. Black Cat began to transform but Mahiru didn't step away from it, wanting to help it. It became a three-headed hound that was as large as a building and Mahiru was forced to back away from it. He gasped when Kuro pulled him away from the beast moments before it would've been crushed him by its paw.

"That woman used a spell to force Black Cat into his Cerberus form. He's probably still under her song so he can't hear us." Kuro quickly explained. He used his vines to restrain Cerberus the best he could. Usually, he could force it back into its cat form with a command but he knew that trying would be pointless when it couldn't hear him.

"Is there something we can do?" Mahiru looked up at him. The expression Kuro gave him told him that there wasn't a way to reverse his transformation.

"Stay away from him, Mahiru! There's nothing you can do to stop him." Kuro screamed and hugged him against his body to keep him from approaching Black Cat again. The three-headed dog rampaged and he knew that the only way to stop it was to kill it. He placed his hand on the back of his head and pressed his face to his chest so he wouldn't see anything. "I'm sorry."

"No! You can't, Kuro!" He could easily guess his intention when he felt Kuro gather his power. Mahiru struggled out of his arms and pushed him away from Black Cat. He couldn't let Kuro hurt it but knew that he had to contain Cerberus and stop it from destroying the forest. He bit his lip as he tried think of a way to do so without hurting it.

Mahiru raised his hands and created walls of fire around them. Kuro stood on the other side of the flames and he couldn't remember being more afraid. The fire didn't allow him to pass and he could only watch them. He wanted to protect Mahiru but he had to trust him.

He struggled to maintain such a large flame and he could feel his body burning but he ignored the pain. If he lost control, he could accidentally burn the forest to ashes. He wrapped the wall around them to make a burning cage that restrained Black Cat further. The hound instinctively flinched away from the fire and growled at the cage it found itself in. Cautiously, Mahiru walked closer to Black Cat.

"It's okay, Black Cat. The siren is gone and you don't need to be afraid anymore. I know this isn't you so please transform back." Mahiru slowly moved the roof of the cage down to force Black Cat to lower its head. His legs shook when the beast snarled at him but Mahiru walked closer to it. It tried to bite him as he did so. Still, he closed the space between them and wrapped his arms around its neck.

"You're not a monster, Black Cat. She forced you into this form but you're stronger." He spoke softly to Black Cat and stroked its neck. Mahiru found a few strings among its hair and burned them without hurting it. Once the last string was gone, he could feel it slowly relax beneath his hand. Dark shadows were released from its body as it became smaller. Mahiru made sure to keep his arms around Black Cat securely even as it shrunk. Soon, it became a small kitten in his arms.

The moment he released his fire, Kuro rushed to his side. He touched his arms and Mahiru grinned up at him triumphantly. Then he closed his eyes and slumped into his arms. If Kuro wasn't immortal, he would say that Mahiru scared him enough to lose centuries of his life. Kuro was relieved when he felt his pulse and knew that he was merely asleep. "You really are a troublesome husband."

He knew that Mahiru must've been exhausted. He never had to summon so much fire in a short amount of time before. But he still cradled Black Cat securely in his arms while he was sleeping. Kuro looked down at him and he was conflicted about waking him so they could walk back to the cave. With a sigh, he lifted Mahiru into his arms and walked towards the cave.

Mahiru rested his head against his shoulder and unconsciously leaned into his warmth more. Holding him felt strangely right to Kuro. He couldn't explain why he suddenly felt protective of him. Kuro saw how strong he was only moments ago and that showed that he could protect himself. He remembered how afraid he was for Mahiru when he faced Cerberus and his heart tightened. He leaned down and softly kissed his hair. "What are you doing to me?"

Mahiru's mind was hazy and his body felt heavy when he woke up. The sound of flipping paper sounded like thunder to him. He could barely bring himself to open his eyes. He groaned as he sat up and a black cloak slipped off his shoulders. Mahiru recognized that it was Kuro's and instinctively looked around the room for him. He was a little confused when he found himself in Kuro's room instead of his own.

"You're finally awake." Kuro set aside the book he was reading and went to sit next to him. He still looked a little pale so he gently nudged his shoulder and made him lie down again. He leaned over him and pressed his hand against his cheek. "But you're still a little hot. Your body isn't ready to summon fire like you did. You're lucky the fire didn't burn you alive."

"Your hand feels nice." Mahiru hummed and closed his eyes. "Did you carry me back? Wait, that's a stupid question. Of course, you did. Thank you. I hope I wasn't too heavy."

"Don't apologize. I'm an Olympian so it wasn't too bad. Just go back to sleep and focus on recovering your energy." Kuro brushed his bangs from his sweat soaked forehead. His light touch seemed to make Mahiru happy so he continued caressing his hair. "Black Cat destroyed your room so I hope you don't mind sleeping here for a while."

"Where is Black Cat?" Mahiru tried to sit up again. But moving so quickly made him a little dizzy and he was grateful that Kuro helped steady him. "Is he okay?"

"He's fine." Kuro reassured him and nodded to the corner of the room. The cat was curled into a ball and Mahiru stiffened, remembering how he found Black Cat in a similar position that morning. But it was completely still and Mahiru bit his lip. He slid off the bed and slowly made his way to it. He saw its ear twitch so he knew that Black Cat sensed him but it didn't move.

"Are you sure he's okay?" Mahiru knelt in front of the cat but it didn't crawl onto his lap like it usually would.

"He just feels guilty for what he did and he's sulking. Just give him time." Kuro said as he sat next to them. He saw several emotions cross Mahiru's face and he knew he must be feeling conflicted towards Black Cat. He was a little surprised that Mahiru reached out his hand to the cat and let it sniff his hand. When it began to lick his hand, he gathered it in his arms.

Mahiru didn't say a word but he continued to pet the cat in his arms. At first, his hands were a little hesitant but they both became more relaxed. Kuro was a little surprised that he still treated Black Cat kindly. Most people would be afraid of it after witnessing its Cerberus form. It purred apologetically and Kuro scratched its ear. "He says that he's sorry for hurting you."

"You didn't mean to and I'm not angry with you." Mahiru held the cat up so they were eye levelled. He gave it a reassuring smile and said, "We're all safe and that's what matters. So, you don't need to feel guilty or sad. I still think that you're a very special cat too. You were being controlled by that siren but you were able to break free."

With his words, the anxiety the cat felt was gone and it relaxed in his arms. It yawned and Mahiru did the same. He stood and walked to the bed. He placed Black Cat on the pillow and collapsed next to him. Mahiru had to admit that he was still exhausted. "I guess it's time for both of us to go to sleep."

"Look at you two." Kuro had a wry smile on his face as he placed his cloak over the two. The cloak's power would protect them and help them recover. Mahiru placed his hand over Kuro's as he started to pull away. But it wasn't his hand that stopped him from moving but his soft eyes. He sat on the cloud and adjusted his hand around his. "What is it?"

"Aren't you going to rest too? If you want, you can sleep with me. I made this bed for you, after all." Mahiru pointed out and Kuro replied jokingly.

"Inviting me to share your bed? I thought you were tired." Kuro laughed when he saw his cheeks become pink. He pulled his cloak up to cover his blush. Mahiru realized how his words could be misinterpreted but he knew that Kuro was teasing him from his sarcastic voice. He pouted at him when he recognized the playful gleam in his eyes.

"By the gods, Kuro! I didn't mean it like that and you know that." He lightly hit him. His body was still weak so his slap did nothing but make Kuro chuckle a little. Mahiru laid back on the pillow and adjusted the cloak around him. "But I don't want you sleeping on the floor again. This bed is big enough for the two of us so you can sleep here once you finish your work."

"I can't believe you're worrying about me when you're the one that should be resting. Just go to sleep." He said in a light voice and Mahiru nodded. He closed his eyes and he was asleep in seconds. Kuro made sure not to make a sound or wake him as he pushed himself off the bed. He returned to reading his book on the floor but he couldn't concentrate on the words.

He had a barrier preventing Tsubaki from entering his forest but his followers could still attack him. The others that attacked him in the past weren't nearly as powerful as the woman and he had to worry about that fact. Kuro remembered how the siren was able to force Black Cat to become Cerberus. Only the Olympians knew how to cast such a powerful spell and he knew that Tsubaki must've taught her how to use it.

Kuro glanced at Mahiru sleeping and he made a silent promise to protect him. He thought that helping Mahiru would help him atone for all his past mistakes. But it seemed like he was only putting Mahiru in more danger. He sighed heavily to himself and set aside his book, knowing that he wouldn't be able to get any work done when he was so distracted.

He took a blanket and leaned against the wall. Mahiru said that he could sleep next to him but he decided that it would be better to use the floor. It wasn't that he didn't like Mahiru but he found that he was beginning to like him far too much.

"Please, slow down, Lichtan. I just recovered and you're dragging along like this. This is no way to treat an Olympian." Hyde grumbled as they walked through the town. Despite how he complained, he smiled as he followed Licht. Flying would be faster but Licht said that he wanted to walk through the town. He didn't tell him directly but Hyde knew that he suggested they walk because he was still healing.

"Stop whining and hurry up, Shit Rat." Licht looked over his shoulder and glared at him. "You said that you were going to take me to the Forest of Ash but you're walking behind me."

"I enjoy the view." Hyde grinned at him and chuckled at how his face became flushed from anger and embarrassment. He kicked snow into his face before he continued down the road with a huff. As he stomped forward, Licht told himself to ignore Hyde's words and laughter. The man was a famous flirt and it was said that he had many partners.

I love you, my sweet Ophelia. The words Hyde said in his sleep echoed in his mind and he stopped walking for a moment. Considering his reputation, he didn't think Hyde had ever been in love before. Licht remembered how he almost kissed him and touched his lips. He couldn't explain how the thought made him feel and quickly forced himself to focus on saving Mahiru.

There were still a lot of questions Licht had and he turned back to glance at him. Hyde was standing in front of a food stand. He must've felt him staring because he looked back at him. Then he held out a fresh loaf of bread to him. "Hey, you hungry, Lichtan? Eating something warm is perfect in this cold weather."

"I don't want anything from you. Didn't I just tell you that we need to find the Forest of Ash quickly and save Mahiru. Who knows what Sleepy Ash is doing to him right now?" Licht said restlessly. Seeing how anxious he was, Hyde ripped off a chunk of the bread and slipped it into his mouth. He chewed the bread and its sweet taste calmed him a little.

"You always did like sweet things." Hyde smiled down at him but Licht frowned at him in return.

"Stop acting like we're close." Licht rolled his eyes but he continued to eat the bread he held out to him. Then, he took out his coin purse and he handed the stall owner a few drachmas. He didn't want to owe the god anything so he tried to pay for the bread himself. Hyde quickly took his coins before the stall owner could. "Give that back, Shit Rat!"

"Keep your money. This stall owner was giving me his bread as an offering." Hyde explained but Licht didn't look happy with his answer. He took a few more coins and handed them to the stall owner. When Hyde would've taken the coin back, Licht slapped his hand. "What was that for? I'm getting us supplies for our journey and you hit me."

"I hit you because you were being an idiot. If I want to give him money, that is my choice. I don't like taking things from people for free when they already have so little. An Olympian like you wouldn't understand." Licht ended softly and tore his eyes from his. He bought several more food from the vendor. "Is this enough money?"

"You really are an angel." Hyde would've teased him and called him a fool but he saw a rare strength in his blue eyes. He decided to let the issue be because he couldn't possibly win against Licht. He ruffled his hair briefly before he backed away from his glare. "I'm going to check out to the next stall so catch up when you're finished."

"Don't you dare leave town without me!" Licht called after him as he waited for the man to give him his change.

"Sir, you don't need to pay me. I did intend to give him bread as an offering. We need to keep him happy or else he will destroy our town." The merchant whispered harshly so Hyde wouldn't hear them. It was easy to see how afraid the man was of the Olympians. The snow falling around them was a constant reminder of the gods' power. He was shocked when he saw Licht openly argue with Hyde.

Licht glanced to where Hyde was purchasing a pan flute. He had an attractive smile as he played a lulling song. The storm plaguing the town died a little in reaction to his song. While the sight of an Olympian playing a humble instrument was foreign to others, Licht wasn't shocked by it. During his time with Hyde, he had seen many sides to the Olympian.

"I'm not afraid of him and you don't need to be either. He says he doesn't value human life but he isn't the type to go out of his way to destroy a village for a petty reason. So, don't waste your time placating him with your offerings." Licht found himself defending Hyde. "You shouldn't be relying on gods anyways. Learn how to survive on your own skill and you can endure even an Olympian's wrath."

Licht took his bag of food and ran to where Hyde was waiting. He had a small grin when he reached him and he raised a brow at him in question. He realized that he must've overheard them and quickly brushed past him. "Stop smiling and take me to the Forest of Ash already!"

"I'm sorry, I wasn't able to bring you Black Cat." The siren said apologetically but Tsubaki smiled kindly at her. He had always been kind to his followers and they were grateful to him in turn. While he gave her the dangerous task, he neither expected nor wanted her to give her life to accomplish it. That was why he taught her the song of Cerberus.

"We are happier that you returned, Otogiri. I'll make you a new lyre later. For now, let us eat and celebrate, everyone! With Cerberus gone, it'll be easier for us to enter that forest and destroy it." Tsubaki started to leave but he stopped when she shook her head.

"I stayed and watched to make certain that Black Cat died. He didn't. There was another god with Sleepy Ash and he broke my spell over him. Furthermore, he used fire to do so." Only an Olympian could use fire and Tsubaki thought over the implication. "I didn't recognize the god but it seems like he is important to Sleepy Ash."

"How interesting." Tsubaki mused to himself with a smile. "Maybe he will be a better pawn than Black Cat."

Woooo, I got a chapter finished~

#servamp #kuromahi #lawlicht #mahiru shirota #licht jekylland todoroki #servamp kuro #servamp hyde #fanfiction #the forest of ash

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