Chapter Text
The velvet curtain shifted with a whisper.
Namjoon let it fall behind him where he usually would have held it for Jin. But Jin was out at the club with Hoseok and some of the other Blessings, drinking too much and forgetting just enough.
It was for the best he was out. If Jin didn’t revel away his excess energy, he wallowed in it. Namjoon cared about him very much, but he did not know how to bolster wallowing Jin when he was wine drunk at eleven in the morning lying on the floor with the TV off monotonously yet accurately delivering the entire dialogue from Moulin Rouge. Namjoon usually ended up lying there with him, chiming in with the chorus lines that he could remember.
It was for the best that he came alone.
“Have a seat, Namjoon,” said Pippa, voice breezy and thin like leaves blowing in the wind.
She sat deep in the bend of the wicker chair, tangerine skirt spilling over her knees to the floor in a trail of linen. Her hair was piled atop her head in a grey and red whirl. The way she looked at him, directly at him, told him she’d been waiting.
He’d never found Pippa to be an intimidating woman, especially not next to Bituin. But when she acted as the Northern Oracle, he found her entirely unknowable. He hated not knowing.
Namjoon sank into the leather couch directly across from her and rested his elbows on his thighs. He’d been working late again, pouring over Yoongi’s accounts of the Arae daemons and cross referencing with as many sources as he could dig up. There was a loophole somewhere in Jimin’s deal. There was some clever trick he could perform. He just needed to find it.
Considering Pippa seemed to have a premonition of why he’d come, Namjoon didn’t attempt pleasantries, “I’m here to ask about the prophecy.”
“Where’s Jungkook? The prophecy was for him.”
It wasn’t an earnest question. She asked it like he was probing for something. Namjoon’s brow furrowed.
“He’s… not in a good headspace,” thunder crashed overhead as if to emphasize his point, “I’m not here on his behalf anyway.”
“You’re here for your own reasons?”
Namjoon selected his words, “I’m here to confirm that we’ve done what was asked. The cold moon is coming and I’m trying to prepare. We don’t have Yoongi anymore. This whole thing rests on him.”
“That’s as good a reason as any,” Pippa said, getting the answer she wanted, “let me take a look.”
She reached out a hand, palm up, bangles clinking together.
“Please,” said Namjoon. He took her hand.
An instant of contact, that was all it took. Pippa’s hand fell away from his. It landed limply by her side. Then she stiffened. She sat up straighter in her chair. Her shoulders drew down and together as if set upon by some invisible weight.
Pippa leaned over the coffee table in between them. Her fingers rested pensively at the base of her chin. She looked down.
There was suddenly a Petteia board on the table, checked black and white like Namjoon’s fear-vision from Hecate. It was strewn with small round playing pieces, like black and white pebbles. Namjoon sat up straighter too. That hadn’t been there a moment ago, he was certain of it.
It appeared that he was playing black and she was playing white. There was no way he could get out of the bind. He needed two more pieces on his side to make any semblance of a recovery. This was too much like that vision. He would have to do better this time.
“It’s there, just give it a moment,” reassured a voice.
Namjoon looked up. There was Pippa, adopting a foreign posture, gazing down at the board with a calculating expression Namjoon had never seen before on her face. When he looked back down, he saw an entirely different woman sitting across from him out of the corner of his eye. Her eyes were the same deep brown eyes he saw in the mirror. Pin-straight brown hair cascaded from under her helmet and over her silver armour. She bore the face of his aunt.
“Is-”
When he looked up, the woman was Pippa again. Or at least hiding in Pippa’s body.
“Before you speak,” his patroness said, “re-examine your options.”
Namjoon glanced back down at the board. His pieces were now shifted one spot over while hers remained in the same place. But he hadn’t moved them. With the new placements, there was one gambit he could run to win the Petteia game. It would not be a sure bet, but it would be bold. Namjoon moved the first piece.
“Better,” said Athena.
“It’s an honour to play with you,” Namjoon started carefully.
“It is,” she agreed, moving her next piece without hesitation. She captured one of Namjoon’s remaining black pieces, but it was a necessary sacrifice for his greater goal. “I will be brief. You have neuropathways to forge in your sleep and I have wars to plan.”
“Wars?”
“Imperialism hasn’t slowed since the dawn of the sailboat. The world is a big place, Kim Namjoon.”
Namjoon was well aware of that, but he held his tongue in front of his patroness.
Jin had once asked why Athena wasn’t his matron since she was a female god. Perhaps if Namjoon followed the Roman ways, he would be. Perhaps if he sat across from Minerva of artistic craft as they believed in the south or Freya with her balance of love, war, and death as they called her in across the ocean instead. But Athena was defined by her unyielding wrath, for her swift and cruel punishments. She was not so adaptable and benefacting as a matron god.
Namjoon took two of her pieces. Athena took one of his.
“I’ve come to warn you, against the wishes of the pantheon.”
For a moment, Namjoon basked in the knowledge that he was worth the consideration of the pantheon. They knew who he was, he had done something important enough to have his name in the minds of the gods. Athena continued before his thoughts spiralled off with inflated self-importance.
“They believe I will sour the Fates against their Blessings if I give you an unfair advantage, but the margins have become too tight for error. Apollo has been absent from Olympus as of late. Without his council, even the gods walk blindly. I cannot pretend to know the future, but I can see the forces gathering at the edges of the battlefield. A new war is being waged. You find yourself in a very precarious situation, Namjoon.”
“Have I?” Namjoon found himself poised to win the game.
Athena did not smile, “Your handling of your warriors was basically successful. It is imperative that you tighten your grip on them.”
“How so?” It was difficult to keep the uncouth eagerness out of his tone. Namjoon failed at that, but Athena didn’t seem displeased by it.
“Lines have been drawn in the aether,” Athena said, picking off one of Namjoon’s last pieces, “there are those who cling to the archaic ways of chaos and those who strive for order. You will be on the latter side of this line.”
“I will,” said Namjoon, both because he wouldn’t contradict her and because he believed it. Order was good. Order was logical.
Namjoon ran his gambit, capturing several pieces as he went. The black stone between his fingers was his lance to her esteem. If he won, he would know he was worthy of her. It wouldn’t end like Hecate’s fear-vision. He would be better. Athena made a counter move. Namjoon was ready for it, skirting the edge of the board.
“The Blessings placed in your lap are weighty gifts. Do you know why they have been set on this path with you?”
“Because they are powerful and young?” Namjoon hazarded, “Easier to convince and harder to exhaust.”
Athena shook her head once and went back to considering the board. Namjoon thought he was going to vomit. He got it wrong. His one time to impress her and he got it wrong.
“You Blessings exist to fight and die unbound from our protection. Representatives of our will like these pieces,” Athena pursed her lips, pausing her hand above a white piece. Namjoon had nearly captured her last piece. “Hades named his champion unprompted. Zeus has named his own in turn. Not all believe it was an act of war, but I know a drawing of arms when I see it. The new way is poised to obliterate the old. The Fates may have offered you a unique advantage, Namjoon. I cannot speak to them any more than a fly could speak to me, but I see it in the omens. They have offered my Blessing the reins on the others, they have sided with me. It is your responsibility to have your hand on the pommel of Zeus’ champion when the time comes. It is your responsibility to wield him accordingly.”
“I will,” vowed Namjoon.
He shuddered to think of what might happen to Yoongi and Jungkook in all of this. The idea was a haze of violence clouding the rails of his mind, red and tragic. Obscure. It was difficult to imagine a situation which wouldn’t end in Jungkook laying down his weapons when Yoongi inevitably offered to lay down his life. It was difficult to predict who would prevail if they were made to fight. And by the sounds of it, they would be made to fight.
Namjoon was secretly glad he was not being asked to wield Yoongi. Some dogs were trained only to bite the hand that fed them.
“My mother Blessed that woman for more than writing of scourges.”
For a moment, Namjoon wondered why she’d say something so random. Then his own weak Blessing turned over the words in his mind. She was talking about Bituin, the only person Blessed by Metis, the mother of Athena.
Bituin was happy to talk about her encyclopedia of superorganisms, but it had always struck Namjoon as odd that she was able to influence so much beyond that. The Blessed were supposed to be modern day saints, giving their whole lives to their task. Starting the House of Blessings was a lot more than a pet project if the results were anything to go by. They’d saved the world. Even though she didn’t fight, it wouldn’t have happened without her.
“She was Blessed to make an army for you,” realized Namjoon, “So we can beat Yoongi and the chthonic gods by proxy.”
Another thought occurred to him. The fight with Typhon was just a test. Hecate broke the rules by walking on earth. Any of the gods could have retaliated if they wanted to. But they didn’t. It was an unsettling feeling, to know that Blessings fought and died for a test run.
“It will not be so simple,” Athena reproached, “There are more ways to play than by the rules. There are many gods yet unaccounted for on either side of the line. That is your responsibility too, to know what you can do with who you’ve been given. These Blessings are volatile, staying their hands will be equally as important as raising their swords. If you loose the godling, we lose everything.”
“Godling?” Namjoon was confused, “What godling?”
Godling. Diminutive of a god. Namjoon was aware of several people who could rise to such power. Yoongi was his first thought, the bargained soul that was supposed to bring the ruin of something. Raised by the god of the afterlife himself. Who could be more near-god than that? Didn’t he know he’d already lost Yoongi? How did he not lose something that was already gone?
Athena clasped her hands in front of him on the table.
“It’s a shame you haven't uncovered the godling and eliminated him. The outcome would doubtlessly be better,” she said it without malice, but the insult gouged deep, “No matter, he’s been keeping himself hidden so far. You are the playmaker.”
He?
Namjoon’s mind raced, again that wretched lab rat in the maze of his own making. He checked down dark corridors and took turns to a hundred dead ends in an instant.
Jungkook was the champion she talked about before, so was Yoongi.
Jimin was a strong Blessing, but his power was obvious, he wasn't hiding.
Hoseok had no more power than Namjoon, and used it every chance he got doing a little first-aid and slightly better than average archery.
Jin and Taehyung were preeminent Blessings, but he doubted both their hidden depths and ability to keep to themselves when a fight was on. Jin followed Namjoon because he believed in him, not because Namjoon had any ownership of him. He barely had any handle on Taehyung at all.
Maybe he hadn’t met the godling yet. He couldn’t wait.
“How am I supposed to win if I don’t know my own players?” Namjoon asked, trying to keep up with Athena’s mixed metaphors.
“You do what winners do.”
Before Namjoon’s eyes, the board warped. Now his piece was too far to the left. He couldn’t make his final move. Athena moved her piece with a sharp click of stone against painted wood. She captured his last piece. She won.
Namjoon bit down on the back of his lip to keep from protesting the fairness of the move. With an expectant raise of Pippa’s eyebrow, Athena’s presence faded from the room. Her words lingered in the air after she was gone.
“You ignore the rules.”