â and what, pray tell, â melinoĂ« said, slowly, wearily, with much restrained exhaustion reserved for conversations she would rather not repeatâ but had to, unfortunately. â did you think i said, dear brother? â
the appellation had once been a quiet prayer; now it tasted of tired bitterness. she held his gaze with an aching so tender, so fragile, it nearly betrayed her carefully-maintained facade of composure.Â
the unasked whys settled between them, thin as a thread, yet weighted with vulnerability.
why did you doubt me?
why did you decide for me?
why did you not listen?
why did you trample on my trust?
the words lodged themselves inside her throatâ half burning, half suffocating, wholly overwhelming with deafening hurt and heart-wrenching grievance that had never been answered, only judged. she had, despite herself, swallowed it for the sake of obeying her familyâs verdict: that her rage was wretched and wrathful, that every time she bled amounted to nothingâ as though such a decree could unmake what she felt.Â
now it was resurfacing. uninvited, hideous, shameful. because zagreus would not let it rest; because zagreus would not stop dragging it back into the light.Â
âŠand because she could not understand.Â
selfish as one might condemn herâ was it truly wrong of her to follow her pre-determined path? Â
a life without a choice, but one that she had learned to accept nonethelessâ though not without protests, not without small, human resistances that she had long outgrown once it was drilled into her what was at stake, and what those endless nights of relentless training and ceaseless failure were for. the princess must not fallâ headmistress had spoken, her voice immovable in its demand for absolute obedience and unforgiving self-disciplineâ slay the titan of time, free the underworld, end his tyranny, deliver your vengeance, repeat.Â
such was her calling.Â
such was her life purpose.
and she had responded with the solemnity of a living weapon.Â
even doom, the emissary-guardian of the fates, had offered her task respect.
even the titan of foresight, her enemy as he was, had understood that she was a necessary piece in setting what had been broken right.
yetâ her family, bound by blood in theory, had failed such basic courtesy?
was it wrong of her to finish what the prophecy claimed of her?
did such aspiration not deserve the respect it had earned?
retribution was now laughing at her, she was certain.Â
and she felt herself exploding like a dead star remembering how to burn.
â have i not made myself clear?  â melinoĂ« asked, calmly. however, her tone suggested otherwise. â have i not explained to you what the titanâ â she caught herself in time, aware that she was allowing feelings that should remain unnamed to take shape in her mouth, still the incessant indignation was pressing harder each moment.
so she continued.Â
if she didnât, she didnât know when she would ever have the chance again.
â what chronos did to me, to our family, to the underworld, to everything, brother? â Â
chronosâ not grandfather. not whatever zagreus was trying to convince her of.
â you suffered the full force of chronosâs cruelty firsthand. you, and the house, were the first to fall in his unjust conquest. lord father was imprisoned. shades were made into mindless weapons. the underworld became a filthy ground for his forces to slaughter and spread. i was denied my family! â her voice was hovering on the edge of breaking now. everything was threatening to pour out of her like a broken damâ and yet, somehow, nothing quite did. there was too much to tell, and she didnât know where to begin, or what she wouldâ could ever tell him. â so forgive my misgiving, brother, i do not understand the course of your action, even now. âÂ
she looked at him fully now; her chest heaved, then settled visibly, like a burden had been briefly pardoned despite, in reality, it was anything but. she measured each word with deliberate care, schooling them back into the neutral stoicism she wore so oftenâ one last attempt to conceal how much it hurt. â âŠhave you considered that, how unfair it wasâ for me? â
her mismatched gaze hardened, the familiar unpracticed, budding warmth gone.
â how convenient of you â she said, evenly, â to take what i entrusted to you and bend it to your own ends. â on top of that, the audacity to insult her spells too.