Chapter Text
She comes to with a gasp, and a memory of a warm hand in hers.
She’s dragged from glittering waters that feel more like tar slithering into her lungs by nothing other than her own strength—there’s no strong, self-assured hand on her shoulder that isn’t her own, and she’s not brought back into her body with a gentle word or two. She’s Arianna Clawthorne, and like always, she drags herself back to the world of the living because she’s still got a bone to pick.
She coughs a little, liquid gold dripping from her lip and burning on the way up, but she doesn’t flinch. She slams a fist against her ribcage, beckoning more divinity to lurch out from her. Only when it comes does she look up, and finds herself seated.
She’s sitting cross-legged in front of a titan like she’s some sort of acolyte, a worm demon slithering out of his eye and down to rest against her wrist. She splays her palm, and lets it explore between the webbing of her fingers. A booming chuckle sounds from above her, and she tentatively meets the glowing eyes of something her sister worshipped as a god—and something she knows she’s spoken to before.
So, she simply greets him like an old friend.
“Titan,” she says, “It’s been a long time.”
“It has, Arianna Clawthorne.”
Maybe, if she were her sister—she’d shit a brick at the realisation that God™ knew her name, but she’s not. She’s Arianna, and she breathes in, thinks about her talks with the Collector, and now… this.
“The better part of four hundred years,” she says and she doesn’t mean it like an accusation, but she remembers the deal that they made. She remembers both the unspoken promise, and the fact that she’d been the idiot who believed the words of something bigger than herself. There’s a reason that she’s been able to understand why someone would follow Phillip. She’s been that kind of desperate before. It’s been rare, but it’s happened enough for her to feel like a dick if she calls them fucking braindead fucking idiots.
So, if he chooses to take it like an accusation, well, she doesn’t care. She’s dead anyways, and that means that he can’t make her existence worse because she’s spent that better part of four hundred years stuck with fucking Phillip, watching him bastardise both her legacy and more importantly, the people she’d been willing to die to protect. She’d always been a fool. If she loved the Boiling Isles enough to die, she should have loved the Boiling Isles enough to kill one measly man.
“It was rude of you to drag me here with the memory of Caleb’s warm hands.”
He laughs.
“I didn’t.”
She purses her lip. “Someone did.”
“Are you sure that they were your husband’s hands? After all, living beings can pull at our strings, too.”
She rolls her eyes. “Yes,” she mockingly agrees, “One of the many living beings who knows of my existence after Phillip wiped existence clean of me.”
She folds her arms over her chest and tries not to think of herself as the dirty child who came out on the side of dissidence. It’s hard, though. She’s always done confrontational well. Until she hasn’t, and she collapses into the arms of the man who took everything from her and fucking sobs like he didn’t and like he deserves to know that she still hurts.
“I don’t care for that man,” he scoffs, “I don’t care for him one bit.”
Arianna, back in her body, quirks her brow.
“Is that why you forced me to stay alive through all of his fuckery? Is this the time that you’re going to tell me that I have been staying alive to kill Phillip from the inside?” And sure, that sounds fucking deranged and she speaks so quickly that she’s not even sure he could pick up everything she said even though he’s worshipped as a god.
“I didn’t put you there, Arianna. You may not believe me, but I never put you there. I wouldn’t do that to you. That wasn’t part of our deal.”
There’s two options when you hear something like that.
Crying.
Or raging.
And if you know Arianna, you know what she picks.
And she snaps.
Just like the first time, when he’d told her that she had much to learn if she wanted to save anyone. In a split-second, he’s got her proving that even through all these years, she’s learned absolutely nothing and she’s still screaming from the crypt, calling out for ghosts with everything but actual words.
“I wish I could have killed what was hurting him, what did the worst thing to him,” she says instead, “I hope he’s somewhere quiet and safe. I don’t want you to tell me if he’s not. Not yet. I need to live first. For now, I need him to be somewhere quiet and safe, full of all the things he loves and nothing that can hurt him.”
“You were one of the things that he loved. And you are not there, are you?”
“Don’t pull that shit,” she snarls, “My sister always pulled that shit. Always told me that Caleb wouldn’t have wanted me to burn myself into nothing. You don’t understand it, you don’t understand that I’m one of the things that hurt him. And that I miss him more than anything.”
“I need my revenge more than I need my life or the integrity of my body.”
“Are you sure?”
She growls, bristles. Comes through like the storm that rips towns asunder and shatters families with one sweep of a slender hand.
“Tell me,” she pleads, “Where to put my love!”
“You told me, all those years ago, that I should wait for time to do what it does, but it didn’t! I still hurt!”
He sighs. Like she’s a petulant child stomping her foot against the ground.
Then, in the blink of an eye, winces. Like she’s hit a sore spot.
“You split your life into threes.”
“But it’s not the truth.”
“You are no girl.”
“You are no mother.”
“And you are certainly no crone.”
She narrows her eyes. “Give me my wrath back.”
“Give me my power back and I’ll show you that I’ve learned not to hesitate.”
She hates how desperate she sounds.
“Please!”
“You told me that you didn’t care for Phillip. Give me my power back and I’ll show you just how little I care for him. Give me my power back and I’ll make you proud with it. I won’t waste it this time. I won’t throw your gifts away.”
“I understand now,” she begs, “I understand that you gave it to me to use. I won’t snap myself in half.”
“Sweetheart,” he laughs, echoing through time, “You gave it back to yourself.”
She’s not proud of how her mouth flaps open and closed like a fish dragged onto cruel land. She’s supposed to be cooler than this, she’s supposed to be composed, after all these years. The last time they spoke, she’d decided that she’d be okay with killing herself because then at least she’d get to find out of if the humans were right and she’d see Caleb again.
Even if her hand would spend eternity reaching out of Hell for his, at least she’d get to catch a glimpse of his face.