𝑷𝑳𝑼𝑵𝑮𝑬.

𝑨𝑹𝑰𝑨𝑫𝑵𝑬 𝑨𝑺𝑻𝑬𝑹𝑰𝑶𝑵.

𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒓𝒕𝒚-𝒕𝒘𝒐, 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝒐𝒏 𝒂 𝒘𝒉𝒊𝒎. 𝒎𝒆𝒅𝒊𝒂 𝒍𝒊𝒂𝒊𝒔𝒐𝒏 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒂𝒆𝒈𝒆𝒂𝒏 𝒘𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒔  ⸻  𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒚 𝒊𝒕 𝒔𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒔 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒊𝒔𝒕 ?        

All things considered? This isn’t even the bloodiest match of the season. Ari has been watching it go down (literally, figuratively, and then some) from the ringside seat. He kept biting on his knuckles until red speckled white, just waiting for the turnout. Some Arcadian bigshot paid them well to finesse this in the second half. After the third bell, Mino was still standing.

After the third year of doing this—their full-time, full-fledged, full-toothed life after the orphanage—Ari should know better than to survey the damage.

(You can never tell, this far. They’ve had victories where Mino stumbled away, bleary and gored, and was back on his feet the next day. And they’ve had losses where Mino emerged unscathed. Apparently. For days afterwards, Ari kept thinking he was safe. Until he inevitably collapsed. It wouldn’t be a jawbreaker or a grappler that did it. He’d drop seemingly out of nowhere: sliding from a bar stool, folding up in the doorway. And Ari would have to spend nights nursing him back. It’s the same with every kind of damage, one supposes. Latent build-up. Their own muscles might not show it, but they’re pretty sure Mino would tell a similar story. About how Ariadne falls, and why. It goes in other ways: hours of not wanting to be touched, too-silent weeks. Strained evenings pulling on, treacle-slow, until they crack on a manic edge. They share some wounds, the two of them; they even share some cures. But the causes are different). 

𝐖𝐇𝐎: CIRCE & OPEN 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄: XENIOS ESTATE 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍: JANUARY, 2130 – FINAL PARTY OF THE HETERAIDIA FESTIVAL

Circe had never been the kind of person who was particularly comfortable at parties. Large crowds made her anxious, and smalltalk with the inebriated both frustrated and bored her in equal measure. Perhaps she would not be attending this party at all, were it not for the fact that it would look exceedingly odd if Pontius’ Chief Technology Officer failed to make an appearance when invited ( something Circe wasn’t sure she cared about, but had been informed that she should ). 

It is not difficult to spot Circe among the crowd – while the majority of revellers have flocked towards one another, swaying rhythmically to the music playing, Circe stands off to the side – an untouched flute of champagne in her hand as she leans against a wall, silently observing. She’s content with being alone – though perhaps she would have preferred her brother’s reassuring presence at her side, she is no longer afforded this luxury, and her own thoughts prove enough to keep her satisfied. 

She notices someone break away from the crowd and make their way towards her, eyeing them as they approach before speaking – “I’ve never been one for dancing.”

He throws his hands out, already asking for forgiveness. “Not here to drag you in the firing line, boss. Swear to Order. I saw a chance to get away from sycophants and I took it like a big boy. They’re out hunting for freebies now, did you know? They want to scalp vacations on Pontius after paying through the nose in Olympe.” Ariadne slots in at Circe’s side. He shuffles enough to cross his arms again. “Influencer discount. Go fucking figure. Like anyone we’d want to book hasn’t been approached already. What do they imagine I’ve been doing, if not poaching for promotional material? They’re just bottom-feeders. No real people worth being seen with.”

[...]

“  wraith ?  ”    her  brows  uptick  ,  though  he’s  not  looking  at  her  face  to  take  notice  of  it .    she’s  certainly  looking  at  ari  ,  though  ,  and  isn’t  certain  what  to  make  of  him .    “  anyone  ever  tell  you  just  how  dramatic  you  are ?    delos  ought  to  hire  you  as  a  screen  writer .  ”

“  i  didn’t  choose  here  to  torment  you  ,  y’know .    i  just  so  happen  to  like  flowers .  ”    the  cant  of  her  head  is  a  bit  curious  as  she  wraps  her  fingers  around  the  neck  of  the  bottle .    “  but  if  you’re  afraid  of  a  statue  ,  we  can  move .  ”    somehow  ,  she  doubts  he’ll  take  the  offer .    ari  confirms  as  much  when  he  cuts  through  the  bullshit .

“  to  keep  your  own  metaphor  ,  you’re  the  one  living  on  a  boat .    you  know  you  can’t  stop  the  tides .    or  a  typhoon .  ”    

fact  :    loving  hermes  rhea  could  be  some  vibrant  ,  adrenaline  rush  of  a  thing .    ten  years  later  and  she  was  unsure  she  knew  what  it  felt  like  to  not  be  in  love  with  him .

“  so  they’re  .  .  .  what ?  ”    dusa  uncaps  the  bottle  and  starts  walking .    she  had  said  something  about  a  walk  ,  right ?    fresh  air  and  all  that .    ironic  ,  maybe  ,  considering  the  dome .    “  self  -  sabotaging  ,  closing  off ?    drugs  and  booze  and  blood  and  glass ?    seeing  just  how  far  he  can  push  his  luck  until  you  lose  your  patience  or  walk  away ?  ”

fact  :    hermes  rhea  could  be  excoriating .    sometimes  his  tongue  felt  like  a  weapon  slicing  at  the  roof  of  their  mouth .    or  yours .

dusa  takes  a  pull  from  the  bottle  ,  and  the  familiar  flavor  is  warm  against  the  walls  of  her  throat .    she  extends  it  back  to  ari  in  an  offering .    “  i’m  not  a  prophet  ,  ari .    i’m  observant .  ”

fiction  :    she  knew  some  magic  trick  to  make  it  any  easier .    she  was  just  a  girl  ,  after  all .

“Yeah, yeah,” Ariadne scoffs, and ducks to hide his amusement, “I’m in the room for the blockbuster. Just leveraging my pay with all this Pontius slap on the back.”

His face turns wry. Then it turns to her. “You know? It’s the year’s fucking romcom.”

While they walk, he stares ahead. Waits out the prophet’s speech. When she’s done, his hand curls. It just sort of... twitches at his hip, palm up and out. Ari doesn’t even realize what it’s for, until he catches himself. A motion for the bottle, maybe. As Hermes would say: let’s go with that.

Soon as she gives it over, he pauses to drink. To drown, too, whatever it is that jumps in his mouth: the first instinct, the first word. Resentment because she has seen Hermes so well, so openly. So unflinchingly present. Because she had so many moments with them. Relief because she’s seen it, and he doesn’t have to.

He flushes it all with a long, bitter pull.

It’s a matter of expectation, really. He had to know Dusa would understand. He had to know it all happened once before. He had done his homework. He read up on the Rhea cycle like it was a lost biography, a coil coming undone across generations. Apocrypha, rather than something happening in the world today. Something becoming the world today.

He had to know that Hermes’ destruction was self-made. If not self-made, then at least genealogically engineered. Then all this mess was not on him. The drugs, the booze, the blood and glass. The grandeur, the manic streak, the madness. The vitriol. The: im hermes fucking rhea. if i sat there and i said wow tell me about pontius and our next moves for this quarter people would know it wasnt me. i have a) a brand to maintain and b) a media plan to stick to. you cant get your fucking panties in a fucking twist everytime i talk something slightly off cuff.

Those quotes he can recite by rote, now. Stamped somewhere in his brain like cyphers. Like card cheats and poison rills; like clues you can never afford to miss again, not once, not ever.

you lose your fucking shit over two loose fucking comments like its the end of the fucking world. when is it gonna click?? youre fucking a rhea youre playing the game with the big boys. step the fuck up to the fucking plate. stop catastrophizing. its exhausting. get a chaosdamned grip.

If Dusa understood, if Dusa confirmed it, then Ari was absolved. Whatever ditch Hermes was hurtling towards could not be on him. Not on Ariadne—with his impromptu apparition, his Fate-fucked defiance to step in the lion pit. To side with the prince. Fucking ghouls and errant knights, here. Ari had hauled himself from the loam of Arcadia and straight into the throne room. Trailing dust and mud and reddish specks over Olympe’s floorboards. Leaving stains of uncertain nature. Well: being stains of uncertain nature. Dirtying the marble. Dirtying the heir.

That fucking statue. He steers Dusa further into the rows. They meander away from the fountain, the entrance, the house. On the surface, of course. Look from above, and Xenios is all around them.

“All that, yes. Cash on the nail. He’s readying himself up for battle, it seems to me. Wish I knew just who the fuck he’s fighting.” He takes another mouthful. The sting helps the air flow. It locks in at the back of his throat and hardens into something bearable. Like acid, ambrosia cuts through the scent and sensibility of this little garden stroll, through the input messing with his head.

(Crushed petals. Insecticide. The hot copper smell wafting down from the heaters. Dusa’s perfume, as faint as a footstep. As sly as a finger on your nape. Makes one think of graveyards; lost, liminal spaces. Like he could step on the wrong twig and be spirited away).

Ariadne wasn’t one to feel at home in the briars, suffice to say. Not at home anywhere he can’t see ahead. Do away with the last part. Not at home anywhere. That’s solid enough to go on.

“We have it on Pontius, actually.” A tick of a laugh. “The technology. We’re developing the exact way to cull typhoons, Dusa, and soothe down the fucking tides. We’re building a world without unstoppable things.” His gaze narrows. Thinning, like he can’t quite grasp it. “I’m on his team. Like, literally. Figuratively. However you want to cut it. I’m on his side, here. But then he says these things—.” Ariadne lifts the bottle. He pinches the neck until his fist goes white.

It’s a matter of expectation. And he didn’t see it coming. Honest to God. This embarrassment; this buzz in his teeth. Like he’s about to confess to pulling tricks. Once again: Pandora never missed this season. Because what is Ariadne doing if not tricking now, really?

And Hermes has said awful shit to him before. And he has said awful shit to them, because that’s how it goes, in this upside-down throne room. And they stay inside it anyway. They sleep together in the blood and the glass. But having his name reduced to pulp - his entire career, Fates’ sake, his career - and watching Hermes kick their feet up for it? Tuning in by the poolside, spliff and malice in tow. Spinning out on him, on all the days they could choose to do it.

That was something different.

(So many things Dusa Gorgonia misses on, here. Not a prophet after all. Just observant. But even those eyes trained in Tartarurs, pealed on the birds and the bees of perdition, can’t quite hack it. She wouldn’t know Theseus, mouth slick with a sneer. She wouldn’t know the truths Pandora got to, entirely by accident. The bones. She wouldn’t know why it matters to Ariadne that history stops repeating. Both with Hermes, with the Rheas, and with him. She wouldn’t know why it’s so important that this time he gets it right. This time, this third, desperate turn).

It’s a matter of expectation. He always knew there’d be guilt with Hermes Rhea.

He never knew there’d be shame.

He watches her from the corner of his eyes. His head slants back, a little, just to regard her. I’m giving you things here, he realizes. I’m giving you an in I wouldn’t give my own brother.

“I assume you know how long we’ve been involved. That it’s more than some corporate you’ll do me and I’ll do you. That he means - means something to me. Zagreus got it, so.” He smacks his lips, to show exactly what he thinks of the audience. He rolls the bottle cap between his hands. “It goes to follow that you would, too. You bag one Rhea, it’s like a fucking game court after.” He takes a breath. Flowers, graves; Dusa is watching him as if he’s the one infiltrating the grove.

“Zagreus has a career trajectory that’s far more upward-bound than your own, as you would be a fool to forget,” Nyx replied, disdain dripping from every word. From someone else, she might call the remark fair, even warranted. But from Ariadne Asterion, a little nobody just as visibly and pathetically hungry for power as she once was? It was merely absurd.

Her gaze snapped back toward his when he brought up his feelings for Thanatos. She knew they would come into play, of course. She just hadn’t realized that he would be so blunt about it. Perhaps he believed he didn’t have much to lose. Her nails dug into her sleeves, arms tight against her chest. She wanted to prove him wrong, to show him just how much further he could fall. But unlike her children, she could not afford to be rash.

“Yes, I’m aware of your infatuation,” she replied, voice kept carefully even. “I just didn’t take you for so much of an idiot that you would act on it after everything, Asterion. My son’s place is in Tartarus. Yours never will be. And even if that weren’t true, I’m currently inclined to see you pushed off the side of Pontius if it would ensure that I never see you within a hundred feet of him again rather than let something like this happen again. So get over him. And get a fucking grip.”

“Upward-bound,” he mimics. Ariadne does her the courtesy of not hiding the sneer. She’d hear it in their voice anyway, dripping like last night’s coffee. Insisting Zagreus was not the running gag the press made to be was one thing; Ari could respect that. (Ari has seen it first hand). But talking up his future career? Conjectural hypothesis at best. “Fate forbid I’ll ever doubt it.”

Then Nyx presses on, and Ariadne stiffens. His smile dies anyway; no show required. Behind his eyelids, sunlight sticks and stalls. Thanatos’ last message flashes through: Because if only the Ariadne truths hold still, then everything from that night does too. A mispronouncement, at best. A confession jammed among the worst things they ever told each other. Ari rubs at his jaw. He swipes one thumb over the bridge of his nose: something, something to disrupt the vision. Will I ever get to talk to Arion? Would it matter then? He lets his hand fall. “Understood.”

So you don’t know. I’ve always wondered. But then, how could you? You raised a child who thinks they are a predator; something rabid, old hunger stalking the plains. They take every impulse they have to mean betrayal. They take every need like a thief, like a beggar. Of course they never allowed you to see they can love. They never even allowed themself.

[...]

“You’re not wrong. There’s something sick about us, something ill. Maybe you’ve gotten better when you left, but I think I got worse.” He chases nothing now, though. He has become a shell. He searches for purpose but nothing comes close to the purpose he’d had, when it had been the two of them, or the three of them. He does not wipe blood off his face now, but rather tears. Salt, blood – it all comes back to such primal things. “You’re right about a lot of things. About us, about me, about the search for death, for a meaningful one and for a higher purpose, even – I know all this, and I don’t know if I can ever shake it, not any more. There’s nothing else in me, brother, nothing but the urge for purpose, for something to kneel at, for something to offer myself for. I would have died for you. And you wouldn’t have forgiven me.” Maybe this was still a fact. Maybe he’d do it still. “So maybe it’s best you saved yourself.”

“We got lost, like we did as kids, trailing those paths, searching. We lost sight. I agree. I can’t fight you on what’s true – but Theseus?” Is this blindness or is this faith? Is there even a difference, anymore? “I don’t agree with the image you paint. He loved us.” Loves him, still, but not Ari, not any more. And that’s all the more dangerous, he thinks, someone who has gone from love to hate. It’s more purposeful, more powerful, than whatever Mino lets love do to him. Ruination. Not rebirth, but decay. “He did not set a trap. Maybe the three of us set it together. Maybe we let ourselves grow blind at his hand, following his promises, his destiny — I certainly did. But I refuse to put it all on him, I refuse to think it was all a ploy. I think he believed what he sold and maybe we were idiots to fall for it, he included, maybe we’re all fools and you? You seem to be the smartest of us for recognising that something was twisted, that something was sickly about it, about us and you. For leaving.”

He cannot blame him for it. He can only blame himself, because that’s how he’s always operated. If Theseus Angelos had seen opportunity in them, had exploited it, even if he had grown to love them ( this he holds onto, the idea that Theseus loves him: he remembers Theseus in his bedroom, the smell of alcohol on his breath, the desperation of it all: this was not a mastermind who’d tied strings around his heart for profit, but someone as starved as them, even if his road towards starvation had differed ), then weren’t they to blame for falling for it?

He is quiet. “But I know. I know this power. They wield it in Tartarus like a weapon, that world that creates orphans and uses them.” Thanatos. Hypnos. All of them. All of them. Everything is a circle, a song, a repetition. Mino hates this world, and himself, but he does not hate any of the other people. Not Hades, not Ari, not Theseus. Maybe he hates Chaos, for this grand design that twists people into something sickly.

Beloved.

The truth sits in his hands. The tears fall again. He’s come undone, he thinks, but there is one thing he knows: amidst all the blood, there is still love. There is still this brotherhood, in whatever shape or form. The next words are a croak, or a sob. A weakness. “I missed you.”

He doesn’t know who breaks first—him, or Mino.

He never does.

Ariadne has been telling this story all his life: I have a brother, and he is the strength of me. I have a brother, and he is the good of me. I have a brother, and he is the hand of Fate.

The story has changed in recent times. In that stealthy way all old truths do, which is more rhythm than rot, their plangent tunes giving way. It says, now: I had a brother.

He wound it out for Hermes. A few other, of course (there are always others, in this place where yarns are spun, where bedrooms break becomings) but most recently? It was Hermes. (It always seems to be Hermes, in this place where yarns are spun). And it started with a scar. Ariadne watched his lover trace his ribs. A tale for a tale; he knew the spin must follow. He felt their fingers stumble over it: a glassy curlicue, five inches wide, knifelike. He felt their hand flatten on his stomach. Felt the question itch up their spine, shivery. He rose to answer before it did.

I had a brother. He recounted the night as it was: Arcadia, six years ago. Maybe seven. Young enough to tiptoe on the ends of the earth. Stupid, bloodless; roaring challenges at the bigger yelps. Pawing more bones than they could swallow. In this story, it’s a bar-fight. (In the other story, the one brave enough to break into the world, it’s a con gone wrong. Their scope had been lethally stupid; even Theseus admitted that, after the blood cleared. Their target used to run the books in the labyrinths - for all it mattered, they might as well have tried to filch a man reared in the bullpen. It left Ariadne in a hotel bathroom. Dimly lit. It was just dark enough to see the blade. It stuck from his chest like another man’s arm; like a branch cupping the bower. It didn’t seem part of him. Whenever he looked down, between shots of silver unconsciousness, he blinked with renewed surprise. A few times, he tried pushing up. He fought to crawl past the threshold, towards a place where his body was his own again. He kept sliding against the tiles. Then, sleep. Then, the strange, cold branch. He was still clinging to the towel rack when Mino found him).

It was the same, back then. Perhaps that’s why it comes to him.

(Of course, Theseus had been there too. Wresting off his clothes, wading through the pool of red. He pressed the fabric to Ariadne’s stomach. Held it there, rushed and desperate. Like covering something vulgar. His hands were shaking. Madly, even. It kept knocking Ariadne’s head backwards. In retrospect? They’re surprised they were worth a good shirt).

Then, as now, he couldn’t tell who broke first: Mino, or him.

(It’s not a memory he brings up often. It’s the kind of anecdote people always gawk at. The people in his life these days. In this place where yarns are spun. They titter and squeal as if crossed by a secret thrill. Like uncovering something vulgar. Even in Arcadia? With some exceptions, that’s what they all ask next. Ariadne smiles. Glassy as a closed wound. He reminds himself he had a choice, once, to stay in a world that knows him. A world that knows there’s no break from the knife. Even in Arcadia).  

I had a brother, he tells Hermes. We used to run up a storm. He’s gone, now.

In whatever order, Ariadne breaks. He falls forward. His hand reaches for Mino across the threshold, and grabs him, vice-tight, like they never took that fucking knife out. He pulls his arms around them. Then he crashes, face pushed into Mino’s chest. He comes apart unseeing. Like he’s still slumped on that floor—still a creature wounded, alone, with their life pouring from an open gash. 

“I missed you,” he murmurs, and before he knows it, it’s no longer confession but a chant, rising in the low room like the hymnals Mino dragged them to, “I missed you, I missed you, I missed you more than I’ve ever understood. I missed you like my own body, like my own face.”

[...]

The glass topples. Red spills over the tablecloth.

(Civilised blood, thinned with water and the fragrance of plums.)

Charon’s fingertips curl over the hatched fabric. Perhaps Charon, too, is descended from beasts. Then he must be the stalking creature in the tall grass, the animal with long and recurved teeth. “Oh,” he says, as wine drips into Ariadne’s lap. “It seems I’ve made a mess.”

Charon is smiling. The chair legs are scraping back on marble. He is standing, then he is standing over Ariadne: one hand resting on their shoulder. One hand skimming down their arm. “Forgive me.” His thumb digs into the flesh of Ariadne’s right shoulder. “I can be careless. Let me clean you up.”

Like he does at every final hour, Ariadne plans a way out.

He sees his chances narrow. The room fills, empties, fills again. It leaves nothing around Charon’s pursuit. His hold grows, advances. It doesn’t happen at once, with a lunge or a backstroke; it nears incrementally, as if he has detached his body into smaller pieces, interchangeable and undefined, and sent them into Ari’s space. Like chitin; like stamen.

There is an awful thought, here. That the worst he knows of Tartarus was never Hades, but Charon. That the worst he saw of it, he most sordid, unspeakable stains, were not made by a Rhea’s hand. Then the glass tips over, gushing red. He doesn’t even have time to react.

The chair slides to a side, too close to the floor, and forces him to jump out. Well - to try.

I can be careless.

Charon pushes him back down. His grip finds the soft give of muscle. Wrings it shut.

Thanatos. Ariadne whirls in his seat. Again - tries to. Thanatos. The realisation catches fire. If it wasn’t for the wine, if it wasn’t for the risk of this moment - optics, optics - nothing in the world could put it out. Ariadne slaps at his hand. It comes from a place before instinct, a place he had to thresh in before he earned a name. He paws at it again. He has to, has to, pry it off without reaching skin. Skin is a promise, he knows; if he knows nothing else, he still has that.

Let me clean you up.

The arm drops. It lobes away as if it never knew strength, and that chilopod frame, that body of a thousand bodies, thwacks into something compact again. Ariadne pushes up. He backpedals, fast, straight into the nearest table. “Pay no mind. Accidents, no? Accidents happen. I have to report back to headquarters anyhow. Way I see it? You did us a favour. Workaholics, am I right. The danger of the new millennium. Have a good day. More care, maybe. For us both.”

If he lets himself see nothing else, he still allows this. Charon is a sleeping virus. Not animal, but pathogen. Charon is ruination in a dormant state, resting at the heart of the copse, where the rushes run tallest. Where the field is too crowded to catch what it does. What it eats at.

Charon is maybe, maybe, the only thing that can block out the future. Every other variable Ariadne miscounts would just endanger it, pitching outcomes a few rungs below. But Charon could swallow it whole. He is where Pontius should look to; look at.

He touches his shirt. The patch spreads, wet on his palm. It sizzles over the cracks in his skin. He’ll have to explain this to Hermes. He feels like a gunshot would be easier to explain. Easier to bear, too. Charon’ holding him down is not a feeling he can fuck himself out of. His touch sticks to them like bile. He has his way out, but something made its way in. The eternal trade-off to these games he’s playing. The gamble of contagion. Hermes, he thinks, again. The word runs a hole in his mind. He needs to find them and talk. He needs to find them and never talk.

“Look for me later, will you? Don’t be a stranger, now. I can help you and Hypnos step it up.”

Bravado, bravado; Ari crunches it between his teeth. It’s all he can do, after what Charon saw. After what he let him see. After what they let themself.

There is a common misconception that’s been going about ever since he retreated fully into his role as watcher, one which he has done nothing to dissuade over the years. It serves to his benefit in the end if people believe what they hear, and become complacent for it.

The specifics of each version get cycled through depending on season, but the general gist of the idea remains the same each time: he is a threat, but only as much as a muzzled hound on a leash may be—a looming presence to be felt and noted, but not dwelt upon. And why should you, when he is so little seen on this side of the fence you don’t even recognize him without the chains to hide behind.

Forgettable next to the rest of this family. Easily dismissed when most of the world only ever looks to Olympe to be blinded by what they cannot have. No one would blame you for overlooking him, least of all himself.  All the better for him that you do, come moments like this—all the better that you should be caught unawares.

“No, but you just might be the only one fool enough to die for such a blatant ruse,” right place, wrong time, is that what they’re thinking? An hour earlier or later and perhaps they could have gotten past the codes and measures and locks without keys, even if all they came armed with is a press badge, and a comm piece that is more decoration than tool if their repeat pawing is any indication.

And for what? Curiosity? Bragging rights? A chance at a leg-up in tomorrow’s hunt? It’s a painfully bad excuse, almost laughable really it’s so funny—so much so he’d like to dig into that wrist in his grip and strip the ink from their bird-bones layer by layer. Wrong place, wrong time, and the animal inside is clawing at its cage for a chance at blood.

“You’re not that good of a liar, and I’m not that stupid. What I am, right now, is short on patience, which means you’re almost out of time. So. Let’s cut the bullshit shall we? I know you came with Pontius. Did Poseidon set you up to this?”

From one moment to the next, Ares becomes less forest fire and more gathering storm.

Ariadne can feel it’s within their power to stall it. If not stop it—then find shelter. The corridor turns into a precarious, pitching stage. “No,” they manage. It’s not so much word but warding, a liminal gesture that guides the next steps. Ariadne recoils. Their body pulls itself away, and Ares’ gives like the crest of a wave. They have a minute, maybe two, until training overrides caution.

“To die? For what? You’re laying it a bit thick. International incident because I was tampering with score boards? I’m not here on Poseidon’s orders. You may not be that stupid, but neither of us is being particularly wise right now. What are you going to do? Wring my neck over a sports’ squabble? You have no proof I breached anything.” Ariadne puts down their weight, hard. They use the momentum to snatch their hand from his. “People snoop around. That’s the whole point of this. If it were after me? I’d say it’s exactly why your boss invited us in the first place. He needs the prodding to tell him where the holes are.” A beat. “Trust me. I’ve seen this tactic before.”

Their mouth falls open, a silent ah ghosting over their lips. A sign of acknowledgment, free from judgement, and they receive the flask. Perhaps, taking another drink is a fool’s mistake, and still they do. Half their reserve now drained, placed back from where it had been retrieved, a silent and continuous offer to their new friend; Drink with me. “I see,” They pause, an amused sort of smile crackling to life on Orpheus’ lips. “You’ve gotta tell me how you pulled that one off — Actually, don’t. I don’t wanna know. Ruins the magic, I think.” They laugh, not at their own words, but his. Team he says, and makes a show of his code. The very notion was far too foreign to tender Orpheus that just the idea made them laugh. Were they nothing more than a member of team Olympe, they were surely confined to the sidelines, timed out after one too many red flags. 

A moment’s consideration befalls them, gaze turned down to their own code. Branded by Olympe with half a heart left in Tartarus, it would’ve felt cruel, had it not been a self imposed fate. They lean forward, resting their elbows on their knees as they listen. The stranger talks the same way Orpheus writes — with the loquacious sort of verbosity only an artist might appreciate. Or a politician, perhaps two sides of the same linguistic coin. “’M not blinkin’, promise … You speak like poetry, y’know that? May be cultural theory but you kept my attention. That’s an impressive feat, whether you realize it or not.” With little effort, Orpheus is able to convince themself he is an affable companion, worth keeping around. At least for now, at least until he proves otherwise. 

“Ah, I actually don’t do silence. Kind of suffocating, no?” There were tortured artists who thrived in the silence of between, but the very concept made Orpheus pale in the face. Now, the idea of being left alone with their thoughts made their palms sweat, their eyebrows knit together in an uncomfortable sort of intensity. They should’ve accepted his leave, should’ve embraced a between’s respite. And yet, their mouth keeps moving, scrounging up words to form half coherent thoughts. “I, ah, think it’s real neat. What you guys are doin’ over in Pontius. I’m not too informed on Olympe’s — oh what did you call it — cultural theory myself, but I still think ‘s real neat. Really. I’m always rooting for change, you know? Whatever keeps it fresh, keeps things churnin’ ‘n changin’. I get so bored with how things can stagnate. Same reason I don’t make the same music twice, same reason I won’t be mad when the limelight moves on.” They find themself rambling, speaking with an unearned sort of familiarity. 

How long had it been since they could speak like this, freely and uninhibited? Perhaps it was the alcohol at work, turning the tips of their ears peak and loosening their lips into a lazy smile. Sharing counsel with a stranger, there was no baggage of the past, no obligation towards feeling, or fear of how idle chatter might be later used against them. They speak without too much thought, and in return, company is kept. “So, what … You’re just … Really into rock’n’roll then; rock’n’roll, ‘n critical theories and shit?” A pause. “Either that or you’re lyin’ and you’re actually just some … Press junkie journalist, here for the hottest goss.” The very thought makes them snort. He seems too … too something, to be a journalist. They can’t quite put their finger on it. Then again, it doesn’t seem like they’re trying to.

“Silence can be good.” He rolls his shoulders, like he’s not sold on it either way. His eyebrows wiggle until Orpheus passes the flask. “Useful to accept it. Even more useful to expect it, in this business. But change?” Ariadne takes a deeper gulp. “That’s the best force to roll with. Learn to weather it and you have life in the bag. I like to take it in ever-growing doses, myself.” There’s another twist of his lip. “Not much to know about Pontius beyond that. Aegea is the synthesis of change, thrown back against itself. Here you go. More metaphysics to top up the poetry.”

He props his knee against the cushions. The plush material sinks again, and Ariadne lets it do the job for him. It makes this room look like the end of a work day; it drops them one, two, three measures under the pitch of events, into a place where the hours are slower, the stakes looser.

Then, for a while, they just talk about music. They roll it out with an indulgence that’s timeless, reserved for people with no leg in the game. Green-room dreaming; ghost chase for the sake of it. They both understand it’s a farce. It’s not quite clear how proportionate it is, this understanding—but from Orpheus’ last question, he already guessed it’s a fair amount. 

In the end, their conversation will count just as much as every deal made in Olympe. The back-channel, shadow-room, bathroom-stall concessions. The bargains struck over hesperia powder and sugar-rimmed cocktails. The information traded for chips, coins, future obol bounds; for handies and bail outs. This isn’t a reality where the word official exists anymore. The official, like the factual, is being built with shallow truths and useful untruths. With reciprocal handcuffs.  

In the end, no one needs to put a rubber stamp on anything. Not right now, which is all the advantage of informal affairs. Overt commitment is simply not how the cookie gets made. This high up, people are too smart - or too jaded - for checks in white. But they do need the promise - tacit, assumed - that when the time came the magic would materialize. That’s a promise someone like Ariadne can deliver. Even if Orpheus Aoide knows better than to ask it out loud.