For a split second, Rey thought she was imagining things. Thought the heat from the sun might have messed with her mind, or her mental block was causing things to sound and appear out of thin air. Or worse, another test by Demeter. But, she heard it--the sound of massive paws hitting the earth and then a bark.
She turned her head, taking in the creature and three heads it had. Three heads--
Cerebus?
FINN!?
No, it couldn't be. Shit, it was barreling towards her, ready to pounce. Artemis had a kinship with the animals, not her! Still, she had to think of something!
"Stop!" she yelled, preparing to conjure thorny vines to act as a shield to protect herself or tie it down. She didn't want to hurt him, but she didn't want to pinned by it either!
The great hound skidded to a stop at the last second, tongues lolling as all three heads panted happily, the one on the furthest right giving another sharp yip of a bark.
Slowly, the dog began to shrink, and as it did so, the desert behind him slowly became visible - as did a darkly armoured figure, walking towards her.
Perhaps at a distance, he may have looked like Finn. Same height, similar build. They could have worn each other's clothes. The helmet hid part of his face, but even then, as he came closer, it became more and more obvious that this wasn't Finn at all.
Well....Rey wasn't expecting to really work. However, she was glad it had! A smile slowly crept over her face, happy to see the beast shrinking to a smaller size. But, that happiness was short lived when she saw a figure dressed in black in the distance.
That wasn't Finn. He didn't have armor like that, then again she had only met with him for a day. He wouldn't approach her in such a manner. Her eyes narrowed at the figure while she heard her mother's voice whispering in her ear.
"The world of man is not kind, Rey."
"Zeus and his brothers are brutes, they would like nothing more than to add you to their list."
"You must fight. You must stay away from them."
She moved away from the pup, focusing her energy on creating vines and thorns to form a staff in her hands.
"Turn back," Rey warned, voice low and eerily calm even though her heart was pounding loudly in her chest.
He raised an arm, pulling his helmet from his head, but did not slow his approach. The dark curls framed a face that was pulled into a tight, serious frown.
Beebee tilted one of its heads and then started to circle around her, as if preparing to herd her towards Poe.
"We came a very long way to find you," he said bluntly, tucking the helmet under his arm. "Do you have any idea how worried he is about you? How did you get all the way out here?"
If the poor pup tried to herd Rey towards the stranger, she wouldn't budge. No. This was a trick. This was what Demeter had prepared her for. Rey's grip on her staff tightened, still prepared to fight if it came down to it...and judging by how serious the other looked, the possibility of a fight was strong.
"I didn't want to be found." A lie, it tasted so bitter on her tongue. Demeter didn't want anyone to find her, but she should've known better.
As for 'He'....he couldn't have meant Finn. Hearing his name made her heart ache, but she wouldn't lower her guard. Another test. Another trick, and if she failed...Demeter would be disappointed, or worse. But...there was only one other person she could've talked to. Did she dare lose an opportunity to not know how Finn. How could she be sure?
"It's best if he doesn't worry...or think about me. What I promised him, I'll deliver, but you..." she had to keep herself from looking around in case Demeter was watching.
"So you lied to him." His tone was sharp, pointed, a flare of righteous anger in his chest. He could have dealt with it, if it was Demeter - if she'd squirrelled Rey away but Rey hadn't actually wanted to go. The idea that Rey would promise to meet Finn and then just leave him - leave a withering corpse of a tree for him to find, as if mocking him--
There was nothing in the world like Poe's rage in defence of the man he loved.
He reached out his hand, black and purple smoke curling from in, extending, until soon he had a long pole to match hers. No sword. He didn't want to hurt her - Finn wouldn't forgive him - but he wasn't going to let her try to smack him around, either.
But it wasn't a trick that a mortal man could do.
"What you promised him was to see him. And you let him find death, instead. If you didn't want to see him you should have told him." His expression darkened further. "Was this a game, to you? Did someone put you up to it? Try to taunt him?"
It wasn't a mortal man before her. A demigod, or god stood before her. She should've distanced herself, should have prepared something else, or hidden herself better. Artemis always drilled into her mind to have cover, use her environment to her advantage--but there was nothing in this desert. Not until she breathed life into it.
His anger called forth her own. She didn't lie to Finn, only to the man before her. How dare he accuse her of such things--she wouldn't do anything to hurt Finn. Her anger coiled around her, causing thorns and vines to sprout from the sand and stone, awaiting for her command to lash out.
"I wouldn't taunt him. I wouldn't do anything to hurt him." Her eyes flickered red for a brief moment, her rage and hurt bubbling to the surface. Demeter had taken her, had scolded her and punished her for talking to someone she wasn't supposed to. Instead of perfecting her craft, or finding her duty, she was chatting and wasting time with someone who had ill intentions.
As much as she yearned for her mother's approval, she also felt such anger towards her.
"What do you mean death? The tree I left was still there. It should have survived." Unless...Demeter didn't destroy it...did she?
If he was a smarter man, maybe he would have realised that something else was going on here. That someone else clearly had a hand in this. But he was easily blinded by righteous fury, and that's where his heart had currently settled. Watching the thorns and vines sprout around her only fuelled his ire.
"You can explain to him yourself," He hissed, reaching out his free hand. He pulled it tightly and suddenly into a fist, and the ground below her cracked and caved and started to crumble - a hole opening all the way down to Hades itself.
The ground was cracking beneath her, preparing to swallow her whole. Rey could hear her mother's voice taunting her, telling her she should have been more careful. Rage bubbled in her again, making her grind her teeth and dash forward, trying to out run the ground beneath her.
"You are not taking me!" she yelled, bringing her staff up, trying to knock him back and prevent him from taking her.
It should have dawned on her that the other man she was charging was Finn's other half, the other part that made up Hades, but she had one thing in her mind; surviving.
She was too fast, and he had to force the ground to move faster, and split toward him like the crevice torn by an earthquake. It was loud, and it also meant that he didn't have time to react to her charging him other than bring his staff forward at the last moment.
She hit him like a ton of bricks and then he felt the earth split beneath him, losing his footing and tumbling backwards as the ground threatened to swallow them up.
Rey had succeeded in taking down the other god. Now, she had to worry about the ground swallowing them. Without any trees to act as anchors, her vines would do nothing. Her main intention was to pin him down and knock him, but there was nothing she could do but press her staff against his neck and try to stay on top of him as the ground fell out from under them.
He could have hit her back, but he really didn't want to hurt her. As angry as he was, this was someone that Finn cared about. All he wanted was to have her speak to Finn herself.
He would take no such message to his partner.
They didn't hit the ground. As the crevice opened into the wide, barren plain of the underworld - the palace of Hades just off in the distance, Poe hissed, his eyes glowing purple as they started to float slowly downwards. Her staff was still braced against his neck and he scowled at her as Beebee leapt past them and hit the dark, almost-purple earth below.
He didn’t hit her back, didn’t try to squirm or lash out at her. He didn’t try to get out from under her either....which was puzzling. She didn’t know what to think of him, other than he was being aggressive. Rey didn’t want to hurt him, especially if he was who she thought he was.
Eventually, she let up on her staff, not barring down on him but enough to try and maintain a hold. Her focus was on him and not the palace in the background. A second later, she pulled back from him, still defensive but not ready to hit him.
He didn't say anything else, just glared up at her defiantly as she held him there. When she stepped back, he didn't move, just turned his head to his dog.
"Beebee, go find him," He said, his voice rough. The dog barked once and bounded off to fetch Finn. Poe turned his attention back to the girl.
"Sweet, he said," Poe muttered a little bitterly. She'll love you, too.
The crevice above shifted and creaked, the only escape to the upper world closing in on itself.
"He'll be here soon. You can explain yourself then."
"What?" Rey questioned with an edge to her tone, staring at the other as the hound went to find Finn. Her attention briefly turned up, watching as the upper world stitched and mended itself, closing the entrance they fell through. The sunlight, the life she felt became weaker and weaker until there was nothing, just echos of what was once there.
Demeter would know she was gone. Demeter would come to see nothing growing out of sand and rock, and be disappointed in her. But...if she went back soon...maybe she could be forgiven? Rey didn't know, but she would have to find a way back.
"And then? Keep me here?" He wouldn't dare, and he couldn't have that sort of power....right?
“That depends on what you say,” Poe rumbled lowly, slowly standing. The staff he’d held disappeared into black and purple smoke.
“So I suggest you be truthful. And kind,” he warned. “Because I am very, very tired of all of you treating him lesser than yourselves. I was inclined to like you before.”
Rey wasn't taking very kindly to the warning. She glared at him, fighting back the urge to try and throw a punch or a blow. This was his domain, and it was hard to say if she could create anything to help her here.
"Today aside, I was kind to him." And I still am. But being kept apart from him, it wasn't her fault. She couldn't go against her mother...could she?
"I didn't treat him as a lesser. You're the one kidnapped me and are holding me hostage. How does that make you any better than Poseidon or Zeus?" Rey challenged, continuing to keep a tight hold on her staff. Demeter had her reasons for keeping Rey away from the rest of the gods.
“So one day’s kindness over writes today’s cruelty?” He asked, sneering.
“You want to know what separates me from Zeus? I didn’t come to you as a swan or a bull or some other ridiculous creature and force you. I didn’t strip you of your will, or your tongue. I didn’t turn the sky to ash or the ground to dust. I didn’t slaughter everyone you loved.”
His tone was dark and his eyes were sharp.
“But I won’t see you run from what you’ve done. You’ll face what you caused, and if you’re even a fraction of the person he saw in you, you’ll do it with dignity.”
"I never would run from him. Leaving the field, leaving everything I was working on had nothing to do with Finn." But on some level it did, but she couldn't out right say that. Anger and frustration coiled in her stomach.
"You of all people should know there are things beyond our control--especially when you are in servitude of another," Rey sneered back, gripping her staff until the thorns left marks in her palms. That was as close as she could say about her situation.
"I have my duties to attend to. Things I have to do, and if I could have stayed, I would have." If she could have stayed, or left a note for Finn, she would have. She wouldn't have left him. Then again, she didn't expect him to feel so worried, so concerned about someone he just met.
Or that she would feel the same way.
"But, if I'm like the others my words won't matter will they? You'd rather act like a hot shot then think things through."
“Your duties? To abandon the things you created - leave them to wither and turn to dust - so you can hide in a desert and make it bloom?” It didn’t make any sense. She herself had said that she’d gone there herself, that she hadn’t want to be found, and now she was talking like it hadn’t been her choice.
“I don’t believe you,” he finally snapped. “You’ve lied to me and I will figure out where and why. Don’t even try to pretend you know me. You don’t. This isn’t even a fraction of what I would do, to make him happy. Not a single one of you actually know what love is, not even Aphrodite herself. But I do.”
"Then don't pretend to know me--you shouldn't even know I exist. She rarely talks about me!" Which stung. To know she was some secret, or burden, that Demeter kept to herself, only telling a select few. But, it was done out of love, wasn't it? Done to protect her. Done to ensure she wouldn't fall into Zeus' hands...
But here she was in the Underworld.
"She doesn't breathe a word about me unless she has to, that is lesser than anything else. I didn't think he would care. I didn't think I would matter to Finn." A hard thing to grasp, to know someone else cared, but that was between her and Finn and not the god before her.
"I want him to be happy--regardless of what you think. I'm willing to apologize, but you willreturn me to the surface when this is over or I'll find my own damn way out."
“You can try,” he replied stubbornly, but the sharpness has edged from his voice. Instead, it was in his eyes, narrowed and piercing as he watched her. The words were an immediate response, sure, but his mind was somewhere else.
“If she loved you, you shouldn’t be a secret,” he decided, firmly. “If she loved you, she would rejoice in your life and your presence and she would tell everyone how much she cared for you.” He’d burn Finn’s name into the sky, if he could.
“I haven’t seen him smile the way you made him smile in over a hundred years,” he hissed. “And I don’t care who wants to hide you in whispers. I refuse to deny that to him and I refuse to let anyone else deny it to him, either.”
She would try and damn succeed. She would find her own way out, or claw one out. Yet, the thought of escaping came to a crashing halt.
If Demeter loved her...
It was a question she repeated to herself late at night. A question that haunted her mind whenever she trained with Artemis. A question she asked out loud, hoping someone would answer her...but no answer ever came. Even Demeter dodged it, stating a mother's love was different...something that Rey felt she had to earn.
To have the topic voiced out loud cut her deeper than she wanted to admit.
"He'll find someone else to make him smile--isn't that your job? To make him happy? Something that shouldn't require kidnapping someone?" Rey weakly shot back, holding herself together even though she wanted to lash out in anger and pain.
He did love Finn....he honestly did, and now she wondered what would Demeter do when she found out Rey wasn't there. If she would do anything at all.
Maybe he was different than Zeus. Different from the others who only took what they wanted when it suited their needs. Though, his intentions were to make Finn happy, he still took her from the surface. The ends didn't justify the means...but if their roles were reversed...she may have done the same.
"...as I said...he or you will find someone else to make him smile." Why bother with a weed like her? Why bother with a goddess who had no purpose--whose mother kept her hidden? Hell, would Finn even accept her apology?
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She turned her head, taking in the creature and three heads it had. Three heads--
Cerebus?
FINN!?
No, it couldn't be. Shit, it was barreling towards her, ready to pounce. Artemis had a kinship with the animals, not her! Still, she had to think of something!
"Stop!" she yelled, preparing to conjure thorny vines to act as a shield to protect herself or tie it down. She didn't want to hurt him, but she didn't want to pinned by it either!
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Slowly, the dog began to shrink, and as it did so, the desert behind him slowly became visible - as did a darkly armoured figure, walking towards her.
Perhaps at a distance, he may have looked like Finn. Same height, similar build. They could have worn each other's clothes. The helmet hid part of his face, but even then, as he came closer, it became more and more obvious that this wasn't Finn at all.
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That wasn't Finn. He didn't have armor like that, then again she had only met with him for a day. He wouldn't approach her in such a manner. Her eyes narrowed at the figure while she heard her mother's voice whispering in her ear.
"The world of man is not kind, Rey."
"Zeus and his brothers are brutes, they would like nothing more than to add you to their list."
"You must fight. You must stay away from them."
She moved away from the pup, focusing her energy on creating vines and thorns to form a staff in her hands.
"Turn back," Rey warned, voice low and eerily calm even though her heart was pounding loudly in her chest.
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Beebee tilted one of its heads and then started to circle around her, as if preparing to herd her towards Poe.
"We came a very long way to find you," he said bluntly, tucking the helmet under his arm. "Do you have any idea how worried he is about you? How did you get all the way out here?"
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"I didn't want to be found." A lie, it tasted so bitter on her tongue. Demeter didn't want anyone to find her, but she should've known better.
As for 'He'....he couldn't have meant Finn. Hearing his name made her heart ache, but she wouldn't lower her guard. Another test. Another trick, and if she failed...Demeter would be disappointed, or worse. But...there was only one other person she could've talked to. Did she dare lose an opportunity to not know how Finn. How could she be sure?
"It's best if he doesn't worry...or think about me. What I promised him, I'll deliver, but you..." she had to keep herself from looking around in case Demeter was watching.
"You need to go."
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There was nothing in the world like Poe's rage in defence of the man he loved.
He reached out his hand, black and purple smoke curling from in, extending, until soon he had a long pole to match hers. No sword. He didn't want to hurt her - Finn wouldn't forgive him - but he wasn't going to let her try to smack him around, either.
But it wasn't a trick that a mortal man could do.
"What you promised him was to see him. And you let him find death, instead. If you didn't want to see him you should have told him." His expression darkened further. "Was this a game, to you? Did someone put you up to it? Try to taunt him?"
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His anger called forth her own. She didn't lie to Finn, only to the man before her. How dare he accuse her of such things--she wouldn't do anything to hurt Finn. Her anger coiled around her, causing thorns and vines to sprout from the sand and stone, awaiting for her command to lash out.
"I wouldn't taunt him. I wouldn't do anything to hurt him." Her eyes flickered red for a brief moment, her rage and hurt bubbling to the surface. Demeter had taken her, had scolded her and punished her for talking to someone she wasn't supposed to. Instead of perfecting her craft, or finding her duty, she was chatting and wasting time with someone who had ill intentions.
As much as she yearned for her mother's approval, she also felt such anger towards her.
"What do you mean death? The tree I left was still there. It should have survived." Unless...Demeter didn't destroy it...did she?
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If he was a smarter man, maybe he would have realised that something else was going on here. That someone else clearly had a hand in this. But he was easily blinded by righteous fury, and that's where his heart had currently settled. Watching the thorns and vines sprout around her only fuelled his ire.
"You can explain to him yourself," He hissed, reaching out his free hand. He pulled it tightly and suddenly into a fist, and the ground below her cracked and caved and started to crumble - a hole opening all the way down to Hades itself.
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"You are not taking me!" she yelled, bringing her staff up, trying to knock him back and prevent him from taking her.
It should have dawned on her that the other man she was charging was Finn's other half, the other part that made up Hades, but she had one thing in her mind; surviving.
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She hit him like a ton of bricks and then he felt the earth split beneath him, losing his footing and tumbling backwards as the ground threatened to swallow them up.
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He could have hit her back, but he really didn't want to hurt her. As angry as he was, this was someone that Finn cared about. All he wanted was to have her speak to Finn herself.
He would take no such message to his partner.
They didn't hit the ground. As the crevice opened into the wide, barren plain of the underworld - the palace of Hades just off in the distance, Poe hissed, his eyes glowing purple as they started to float slowly downwards. Her staff was still braced against his neck and he scowled at her as Beebee leapt past them and hit the dark, almost-purple earth below.
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Eventually, she let up on her staff, not barring down on him but enough to try and maintain a hold. Her focus was on him and not the palace in the background. A second later, she pulled back from him, still defensive but not ready to hit him.
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"Beebee, go find him," He said, his voice rough. The dog barked once and bounded off to fetch Finn. Poe turned his attention back to the girl.
"Sweet, he said," Poe muttered a little bitterly. She'll love you, too.
The crevice above shifted and creaked, the only escape to the upper world closing in on itself.
"He'll be here soon. You can explain yourself then."
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Demeter would know she was gone. Demeter would come to see nothing growing out of sand and rock, and be disappointed in her. But...if she went back soon...maybe she could be forgiven? Rey didn't know, but she would have to find a way back.
"And then? Keep me here?" He wouldn't dare, and he couldn't have that sort of power....right?
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“So I suggest you be truthful. And kind,” he warned. “Because I am very, very tired of all of you treating him lesser than yourselves. I was inclined to like you before.”
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"Today aside, I was kind to him." And I still am. But being kept apart from him, it wasn't her fault. She couldn't go against her mother...could she?
"I didn't treat him as a lesser. You're the one kidnapped me and are holding me hostage. How does that make you any better than Poseidon or Zeus?" Rey challenged, continuing to keep a tight hold on her staff. Demeter had her reasons for keeping Rey away from the rest of the gods.
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“You want to know what separates me from Zeus? I didn’t come to you as a swan or a bull or some other ridiculous creature and force you. I didn’t strip you of your will, or your tongue. I didn’t turn the sky to ash or the ground to dust. I didn’t slaughter everyone you loved.”
His tone was dark and his eyes were sharp.
“But I won’t see you run from what you’ve done. You’ll face what you caused, and if you’re even a fraction of the person he saw in you, you’ll do it with dignity.”
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"You of all people should know there are things beyond our control--especially when you are in servitude of another," Rey sneered back, gripping her staff until the thorns left marks in her palms. That was as close as she could say about her situation.
"I have my duties to attend to. Things I have to do, and if I could have stayed, I would have." If she could have stayed, or left a note for Finn, she would have. She wouldn't have left him. Then again, she didn't expect him to feel so worried, so concerned about someone he just met.
Or that she would feel the same way.
"But, if I'm like the others my words won't matter will they? You'd rather act like a hot shot then think things through."
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“I don’t believe you,” he finally snapped. “You’ve lied to me and I will figure out where and why. Don’t even try to pretend you know me. You don’t. This isn’t even a fraction of what I would do, to make him happy. Not a single one of you actually know what love is, not even Aphrodite herself. But I do.”
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But here she was in the Underworld.
"She doesn't breathe a word about me unless she has to, that is lesser than anything else. I didn't think he would care. I didn't think I would matter to Finn." A hard thing to grasp, to know someone else cared, but that was between her and Finn and not the god before her.
"I want him to be happy--regardless of what you think. I'm willing to apologize, but you willreturn me to the surface when this is over or I'll find my own damn way out."
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“If she loved you, you shouldn’t be a secret,” he decided, firmly. “If she loved you, she would rejoice in your life and your presence and she would tell everyone how much she cared for you.” He’d burn Finn’s name into the sky, if he could.
“I haven’t seen him smile the way you made him smile in over a hundred years,” he hissed. “And I don’t care who wants to hide you in whispers. I refuse to deny that to him and I refuse to let anyone else deny it to him, either.”
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If Demeter loved her...
It was a question she repeated to herself late at night. A question that haunted her mind whenever she trained with Artemis. A question she asked out loud, hoping someone would answer her...but no answer ever came. Even Demeter dodged it, stating a mother's love was different...something that Rey felt she had to earn.
To have the topic voiced out loud cut her deeper than she wanted to admit.
"He'll find someone else to make him smile--isn't that your job? To make him happy? Something that shouldn't require kidnapping someone?" Rey weakly shot back, holding herself together even though she wanted to lash out in anger and pain.
He did love Finn....he honestly did, and now she wondered what would Demeter do when she found out Rey wasn't there. If she would do anything at all.
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“I am what I am,” he snarled darkly. “And I know what I’m not. What I can’t supply him I’d scour the Earth to find.”
He wasn’t enough, alone. He never had been.
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"...as I said...he or you will find someone else to make him smile." Why bother with a weed like her? Why bother with a goddess who had no purpose--whose mother kept her hidden? Hell, would Finn even accept her apology?
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:D
GAH ALL OF THIS
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"is that a knife in your pocket or are you just glad to- oh its a knife"
XD
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gah, I don't know how I didn't see this reply!
it's all good!!! ♥♥
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HI IM SORRY the holiday's have been wrecking my life
*pounce* Happy Holidays!