Work Text:
Melinoë winces when the Trial of the Gods appears near the beginnings of the Rift of Thessaly — to anger one Olympian is bad enough, but the duo before her seems to have been summoned by a cruel trick of fate, given her current circumstances.
Pillars of vibrant blue and luminous pink shine as she steps through the door, each beckoning her gaze. Descura hums in her grip as she comes to a stop before the two boons, and Melinoë takes one hand off the staff to drag across her forehead, wiping away an excess of blood and sweat from battle. Her trip through Ephyra has already been hell; her allies seem to be occupied elsewhere, and several wretches have gotten lucky hits in already. Whatever choice she makes, Melinoë knows she'll pay for it dearly.
But there is nothing more to be done. A boon must be chosen — Aphrodite or Hera.
Melinoë's eyes flicker between the boons. They draw her in, each attempting to pull her focus. She reaches out, and then hesitates. She sighs.
"It had to be you two, didn't it?" she says, mostly under her breath. The two goddesses are usually in camaraderie with each other thanks to the closeness of their domains, but this is the first time they've presented themselves to her in rivalry. That does not bode well for the outcome of this run.
After another moment of contemplation, Melinoë's ghostly hand makes contact with Aphrodite's boon, and the goddess laughs.
"Good girl. I'd say that choice deserves something a little extra, don't you think? A little more... sweetness, shall we say."
Aphrodite's power rushes her, and Melinoë gasps. The scent of roses and a sudden comforting warmth permeate the air. She's used to the sensation of a boon settling into her being, but the strength of this one catches her off guard. Melinoë feels her face flush red with heat, but embraces how the boon makes her heart race and her stomach flutter. A laugh tumbles out of her before she can stop it. Wow .
And then, just as soon as Aphrodite’s influence comes to rest within her, the giddiness slips away, and she remembers what else must be done. Hera’s voice slices her with its tranquil brutality, binds her with the strength of her words alone;
“Aphrodite may have won your favour with her ‘sweetness’, but this should help you remember just who you have spurned,” she says in clear anger. Melinoë feels a twinge of regret, even knowing that there was no true peaceful outcome to this situation.
The fight that follows is brutal. Amid waves of undead wretches out for her blood, Hera catches her continuously with her wrath, and each time Hitch takes hold of her and cuts away at her health she drowns in its influence. Lady Hera’s terrifying power reminds her of her own reluctance to commit and heightens her fears of doing so. Each time Hitch hurts her she feels her throat tighten, feels her step falter...
... And at the same time, the connectedness isn’t so bad. There is a deep-buried part of Melinoë that also craves it; the same part of her that has always feared being alone. She could bind herself to someone body and soul and never be scared of that again. Her life has already known some of the greatest losses possible, and what the Queen suggests can be taken as a solution — a balm on her soul, so to speak. The more Melinoë fights, the more she feels herself become entangled in both goddesses’ powers like strings. By the time she has vanquished both Hera and Chronos’s forces, she has allowed herself to slip further into the goddess’s influence.
“... and now that you’ve been chastised, you may continue on,” Hera’s voice fills the grove once again, and Melinoë is bathed in her signature peacock hue as her boon appears. When she touches it with shaking fingers, that sense of belonging and closeness wraps tight around her and settles itself into her magic alongside Aphrodite — a near-perfect godly pairing. Love and marriage are logically connected domains, after all.
Hera’s gift shades the binding circle at her feet until it shines a vivid blue, and Melinoë takes a single, faltering step. Like Aphrodite’s, her boon seems different . More potent. Sometimes the gifts of the gods are so slight that it only minutely alters her own magic, and Melinoë must rely on her own strength to cut through Chronos’s forces. This time it feels as though Aphrodite and Hera are puppeteering her directly to victory — or to her demise.
Maybe Hitch isn’t so bad, nor a Weakness to love , Melinoë hazily considers. Is it not for love that she fights now? Is it not for the binds of her family that she takes punishment?
And from there, it only builds. Every time she finds a boon, it's one or the other. The Queen of Heaven and the Goddess of Love deluge her in powers that make her head spin like an overindulgence of wine. Their potency builds to where it feels as though it could spill out of her form, should a blade or a claw catch her. Nothing even comes close to touching her, not with their combined might. She obliterates every wretch that stands before her and victory until she stands alone on the deck of the last ghost ship, Descura singing in her ears and her hands as it drinks in all the death she’s wrought this night.
When she makes it to the last ship before the beach, Melinoë finally allows herself to think of what awaits her at the edge of Thessaly. She shivers. Heat colours her cheeks. She grips Descura hard. It’s all very unnecessary; it’s only Eris, after all. They’ve done this more times than she can count at this point. Melinoë tries to ignore the way her mind wanders and her stomach twists at the idea of fighting her in this particular context.
Cool night air caresses her face as gently as a peacock feather. The faint smell of roses lingers on the wind. The magic thrumming in her step and barely-contained within her staff seem to call out; come here, come closer, be closer to me .
Drawn in like a helpless moth to a deadly flame.
The apprehension is from the boons she carries, Melinoë tells herself. Nothing more.
She wants to fight it harder. But once she steps onto the beach, she knows this outcome will be different.
♥♥♥♥♥♥
Eris is good at many things.
She’s persistent, she’s a great shot with the Adamant Rail, and she wholeheartedly represents her domain, which means that she is adept at pushing someone to their limit in a relentless pursuit of discord. That last part is made easy, in most cases, by the fallible nature of gods and humans alike.
Melinoë has been raised with discipline and intent above all else, and although she wavers sometimes, the resolve she carries about her task never really fails. Hecate has already sent her out into the Underworld; she’s been training her entire life to defeat Chronos and get her real family back, and their desire to unseat him has grown more urgent of late, as his armies grow stronger and Olympus grows more desperate. It’s gotten bad enough that she’s been called to the surface to help them out, which is where Eris has naturally decided to step in. Strife Incarnate may have all of existence to torment, but every so often, there comes someone special to draw her fire.
But without her task, Melinoë is nothing. Royal titles are meaningless when the ruling family is locked up in the depths of Tartarus. She is now powerful enough to withstand the worst effects of most of the cauldron’s incantations, but her arm is a testament to the amount of work she had to put in to get there. She’s sort of adept with the Nocturnal Arms, but most of Chronos’s forces can send her back to the Crossroads with one good hit anyway. All that, and her best feature is knowing when she’s about to lose in a fight so she can scurry away.
And yet… something about her has always called to Eris. Her battle tactics are varied and creative; built on random outcomes and improvisation, which already makes her more interesting than anyone else she could use for target practice. She still talks to Eris with something that resembles kindness; the only being in the Crossroads who still does. She’s fun to get a reaction out of when Eris is just being herself. She’s disturbingly pretty; fair of feature, semi-divine, with vibrant jewel-toned eyes that reflect both sides of her lineage. When she gets mad, really mad, her face turns a fascinating shade of pink; a byproduct of her strange mortal blood. Best of all, she’ll take Eris on every single time she attempts to scale Olympus, and she fights hard. It’s electrifying . When they’re done, Eris misses Melinoë’s bruises just as much as she misses Melinoë herself.
They have a little song-and-dance now, although Eris hesitates to call it a routine because she really, really hates routine. Melinoë will burst out of the Crossroads to scale the surface until she crosses the Rift, and Eris meets her there every single time without fail. This is her beach, besides; Melinoë might as well be trespassing. It’s a pleasantly lonely escape when she doesn’t want to deal with the rest of the Crossroads ignoring her or threatening her, and it’s a picturesque battlefield of ghost ships and explosions when they fight. It’s perfect.
Now, Eris watches as Melinoë appears at the edge of the rift in a burst of wild magic — and this time, something is different . Eris can discern that much as she reaches their spot at the edge of Thessaly, although she’s not yet sure what has changed.
“I’m warning you now, I’m not in the mood to be shot at,” Melinoë says as she steps onto the beach — as if that will convince Eris not to do it. It sounds as though she’s attempting to put on a strong front, but Eris notices how her voice falters; it hitches with something almost akin to desperation. Despite herself, it does something odd to Eris’s blackened heart.
Hmm. This could be fun.
“So don’t get hit,” Eris replies, innocent. She hoists Exagryph to rest on her shoulder. The rail’s heavy iron frame is a familiar and violent comfort in her arms. “What's got you so hot and bothered? Are you here to give me an actual challenge this time? Our last couple of fights have been kind of boring, y’know.”
“Your boredom is not my problem,” Melinoë says, crossing her arms. Her pretty face is flushed pink, her eyes bright and narrowed. “And I — I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Okay, denial, whatever! I know you better than that, Trouble. And actually, my boredom is your problem.” Eris says. She cocks Exagryph with practiced ease. “I mean, if you think about it, I’m here now and not at the Crossroads, and I’m right in your way.”
Maybe it’s the thrill of something different; maybe it’s because Eris seldom treats her with the same dutiful reverence as the rest of the Crossroads. Whatever the reason, it means that every so often, Eris can ask her for something, and Melinoë will give it to her. Right now, she wants a fight. Evidently so does Melinoë, in spite of her previous words.
Melinoë takes a position at one end of the sand and twirls her staff. Without any chance of warning, Eris fires. She purposefully aims at the ground between Melinoë’s burning feet, dangerously playful, and the blast forces her to leap out of the way. Eris pumps her wings to launch herself straight up into the air, where she hovers. Exagryph’s barrel smokes lightly, a taste of what’s to come.
Melinoë makes a frustrated noise in the back of her throat. “Cheat,” she says. Her staff begins to glow.
“That’s kind of my whole game, Trouble. Keep up!” She sprays another round of bullets in Melinoë’s direction, a slew of sudden shotgun blasts that tear up the beach between them. Melinoë dodges, blinking out of Eris’s sight for a moment before she reappears. She swings her staff to loosen a burst of bright pink magic from its end. The attack catches a few of her flight feathers — but then the effects catch up with her, and Eris stumbles. Her heart suddenly speeds up, beats against her ribcage as though it’s trying to escape. Her mind goes foggy and her knees weaken. Every emotion Eris had been experiencing up to this point intensifies, and it’s made worse when she meets Melinoë’s gaze and recognizes what’s happening at its source.
Oh this... this feels familiar, but definitely different. A lot stronger and a little too targeted. Eris falters as though dazed, and horrifyingly, feels her affection for Melinoë rise to the surface as they clash again. Her magic’s pink light blazes like a wildfire.
Aphrodite, then, and Eris thinks it might not just be her experiencing the brunt of her power. Trouble might have gotten herself into trouble this time.
Eris fires another round of iron. Exagryph grows red-hot in her hands with every successive shot. A fair few find their marks; Melinoë’s bright red blood paints splatters in the sand as bullets tear into her flesh. Eris doesn’t manage to dodge as Melinoë throws down a cast at their feet, and the rush of magic grabs her with a familiar and frightening force. It slams into her hard enough to knock her from the air; power that could wipe lesser shades clean into their next afterlife. Eris flies off-course, wheeling her wings in an attempt to stabilize herself. A spray of ichor joins Melinoë’s crimson blood in the sand. Adrenaline thrums in her veins, makes her head spin. There’s a feeling that comes with it too; of being trapped, or bound. Hitched.
Hera, she realizes . Damn it, that really is a bad combo. Eris recalls the sensation of a too-tight chain around her neck, of the constricting binds that accompany that horrible goddess’s domain. It holds her without any other influence, given that they’re alone on the beach, but Eris is still surprised at its potency. And oddly enough, she feels something more ; a skittering echo of an anxious heart, a similar resistance to this binding. Its continuous hook and pull towards Melinoë digs up what Eris thought she had killed and buried on a plot somewhere in the Crossroads, when it became evident that Melinoë had better things to do than stay in her company. She had tried to put her feelings down; instead it seems that they have grown roots and sprouted.
So this is what’s taken hold of Melinoë. The Princess sways where she stands; her staff in hand, her form flickering blue and pink and glittering with dangerous amounts of divine power, her eyes glazed and unfocused — drunk off the combination of godly boons.
“Aphrodite and Hera, babe? Something you want to tell me?” she calls. Winks, for good measure.
Melinoë’s anger and frustration is made clear by the way her next attack slams into Eris with an even more violent force. It douses her in a bright spray of pink light, and her feet drag lines across the beach as she’s flung backwards.
Eris shakes out her wings, spraying ichor and feathers everywhere. She raises the Rail and arms a grenade. “You’ve done it now,” she growls, and fires.
The grenade blast deafens her momentarily, but she feels when it hits; power rushes through her veins and seemingly into the gun itself, to prime her shots and strengthen her iron. The Adamant Rail may have had many wielders, many aspects, but this power is hers alone. She raises the gun and pulls the trigger — again, again, again . Shot after shot cuts the sand and sprays red blood from Melinoe’s lithe body.
The fight becomes harder to follow the longer it goes on for. Eris is barely aware of her own actions — she finds herself in flight without any recollection of how she got there, laughing wildly as she drops a dozen bombs onto the beach. The explosive heat catches her wings and slings her across the sky. The Rail burns in her hands as she fires again and again on the goddess, almost past the point where she can stand it, but gods does it feel good. She gradually becomes aware of powerful magic crashing against her again and again, pelting her with binding curses and love magic until she’s nearly down to her life’s end. Eris is left panting with effort, sick with affection, burning for revenge.
The fight builds to a climax. She drops another grenade on herself and basks in the power. Then a third. Melinoë’s form flickers — once, twice, a third time, again and again until she too has been knocked down to a tiny sliver of vitality. Any outcome is a possibility — except Eris will not lose to her, and pours that promise into every single bullet she slings her way.
And then, something shifts.
There comes a point where Melinoe gets in way too close — she shouldn’t have to, not with that cursed staff, but her movements have grown more erratic the longer the fight drags on — and abruptly there is a second set of hands on Exagryph. Melinoe claws at the Rail, fighting Eris for control. In her surprise, it very nearly does slip from her grasp. Did she finally lose all her reason?
“This infernal thing — give it up , for once,” Melinoe growls. “You shouldn’t even have it in the first place!”
“Who’s the cheat now, huh?” Eris says, and swings the gun. Melinoe staggers from Exagryph’s collision with her shoulder, and Eris seizes the opportunity to shove her backwards for some breathing room. Melinoë stumbles away, but her staff comes up again just as quickly. In an instant she is upon Eris; there’s a sudden angry crack of her staff against Eris’s head — no magic — and as it whips back from the blow she tastes a burst of ichor on her tongue. The impact knocks her to the ground.
For a moment Eris struggles to find herself, and then Melinoë is on top of her, pinning her to the dirt with her body weight. She straddles Eris forcefully; with her translucent skeletal hand, she binds Eris’s wrists together above her head. She raises her staff again in the other.
“Oh, this is new.” Eris struggles against her bonds, but Melinoë is relentless; she refuses to budge, and instead redoubles her efforts at holding her still. In any other time, Eris would resist the swift reactions of her own body — the incessant hammering of her heart and the tumultuous turning of her guts — but after so many hits from Aphrodite and Hera, she finds herself unable to do anything but allow it. She barks out a laugh and smiles, all teeth; “I never did like being bound, but maybe for you ...”
Melinoë’s fingers dig deeply into her flesh. “Gods, do you ever stop talking?”
Her words teeter on the line of frustrated and desperate. There’s that fire, brought to the surface. Eris doesn't hold back when a wild laugh tumbles out of her. “You’ve always been good at taking control, babe. Did I ever tell you that?”
“Shut up,” Melinoë says. Eris squirms in her hold, and Melinoë’s grip tightens. She moves in even closer; when she speaks, Eris can practically feel the words hot against her skin; “You have no right to say such things.”
“Oh, make me ,” Eris hisses. She thrashes her wings, beating the ground at her back and kicking up a cloud of sand that catches the moonlight around them in silver beams. Melinoe pushes her back down hard. The moment sharpens; crystallizes. Melinoë stares down at her, eyes wide and pupils blown. Her face is still flushed that lovely, fevered pink. Her body is heavy against Eris’s, her skin soft and flame-warm. For a moment it still feels as though she’s soaring through the sky; Eris forgets which way is up and down, which feeling is desire and which is hatred. Melinoë stares at her like a woman starved. The rampant beat of Eris’s ichor-filled heart pounds in her ears.
What comes next is a sudden flux of force and urgency as Melinoë’s mouth falls upon hers. Then her tongue slides red-hot against Eris’s as she deepens the kiss, as she drowns them both in desire. She smells of dusty incense and sweet earth, of metal and sweat and lingering magic from their fight. She tastes like Nectar and roses. When Eris’s racing mind finally catches up she remembers how soft Melinoë’s lips are when she’s not trying to devour Eris alive. Against her better judgement, Eris would let her.
Eris knows she’s only a substitute for what Melinoë is so desperately seeking, but she’ll take what she can get. She kisses back, rough and insistent, seeking control she knows Melinoë won’t relinquish voluntarily, and Melinoë sighs into her mouth. Eris’s hands find Melinoë’s hips; the Princess allows her to grip tight enough to bruise. Her head spins like she’s partaken of too much Ambrosia. Another slip of her tongue, and another gentle moan, but Eris needs to be closer, needs them to be connected body and soul so that they might never be parted. Blood and darkness. She could keep going for the rest of time, keep exploring Melinoë and wringing those sweet sounds from her forever. She could get addicted to this the way mortals overindulged in wine and smoke.
She once told Melinoë that things could never go back to the way they were. They were never quite like this, though, so there could be hope for her yet.
There comes a moment eventually where they have to stop, when Melinoë gasps for air and when Eris exhales a strained “Oh, whoa, ” and when that happens Melinoë’s two-tone eyes widen in devastating horror. She scrambles back, pushing herself further onto Eris’s lap, which does nothing to remedy the situation. The air grows cold and quiet, with only the sound of saltwater lapping at the shore.
“You only touch me when we fight now,” Eris slurs, open and raw. Her skin tingles in the wake of Melinoë’s touch. “Why’re you holding out on me?”
Melinoë pushes her witching staff firmly to the hollow of Eris’s throat to pin her back against the dirt — not its intended use, nor its intended effect. She swallows.
“Shut up. I’ll slay you where you stand, same as everything else that tries to stop me,” she spits. Eris’s gaze drunkenly lands on the smudged lines of luminous paint at Melinoë’s mouth as she speaks. There’s a line of Eris’s own dark lip lacquer there, too; smeared on her pale skin like a blessing of arcane ash. And then, quieter, she whispers; “It shouldn’t have been you. You shouldn’t be here.”
She coughs, her throat sliding against the staff’s edge. “H- Ha ! Nice try. I can come and go as much as I want.” Eris grabs the end of the wand with her free hand and pulls it further into herself. Melinoë gasps. “Or as much as you want,” she rasps.
“Stop it,” Melinoë hisses. The staff abruptly disappears from her windpipe and the weight lifts from her hips. Eris’s vision clears; Melinoë stands before her now, her nose bleeding red and her jewel-bright eyes flashing with fury. When she scrubs at it with her translucent bone arm it smears into a thick, wine-dark line across her face. “Get away from me.”
Abruptly Eris is reminded of her real role with Melinoë as a substitute, and nothing more. Still, when she rights herself, she bats her eyelashes at Melinoë in a way that suggests she’d want her company further, because she knows deep down that’s what will piss her off the most. The next time she gets bored, Eris knows she’ll be back in the Crossroads trailing Melinoë, and she’ll get to keep poking her about whatever the hell this was.
She’s going to be mad after this fight, though.
“Whatever. You started it. And actually, I think you should go home,” she coos. Eris raises Exagryph to the only target that has ever mattered to her, and Melinoe’s eyes go wide.
She fires a single resounding shot, and the goddess is blasted backwards in a wide spray of crimson blood.
Melinoë manages to gasp out; “Return to shadow, now!” as her life slips away, and then Eris is left alone once again on the beach.
♥♥♥♥♥♥
Melinoe wakes in the Crossroads, and just as quickly as she’s made conscious, her anger flourishes anew.
As much as you want , Eris’s voice repeats in the back of her skull.
She shivers. “Shut up,” she hisses again.
Is this want? Desire?
If it is, it’s so different from anything she’s felt before.
How much of it is Hera and Aphrodite, and how much of it is her own self?
Melinoë isn’t sure she wants the answer to that question.
She repeatedly clenches her hands into fists, digs her nails deep until half-moons are imprinted on her skin. The action leaves no mark on her skeletal palm. Her return charm heals her of any injuries, and she feels disturbingly lucid after the fight as a result. Her shoulder should ache where Eris had clubbed her with Exagryph, and her muscles should strain from the effort of holding the other goddess down as she had thrashed about. She breathes in shakily.
She cannot want Eris. Desire for the goddess who represents the pantheon of discord will cause more problems than it could ever solve, and she doesn’t need any more difficulty added to her task. She hadn’t considered any of the consequences. In fact, she hadn’t thought much of anything when she kissed Eris, at all.
One hand finds her mouth; she tastes copper on her tongue. While her injuries have been washed away, the sensation of the kiss feels burned into Melinoë’s very flesh.
She cannot even rightly blame either goddess for her actions. It may have been their influence, but neither of them pulled their power from nothing. Hecate had always made it clear that intention had everything to do with influence in the arcane arts — it is not so different with a godly boon, it would seem.
Melinoë feels empty where their power once overflowed, cold where their love and connection had once warmed her. She stares at the candles that bathe her space in soft, orange light, and feels as though whatever it was that blazed within her has sputtered out.
She will not see Eris for a long time, whether by her own conscious decision or for reasons outside her being. She will ignore the aftermath in favour of redoubling efforts to complete her task. She will not touch the Beautiful Mirror or the Iridescent Fan for many nights after.
Melinoë has lost this battle. Whether or not she can pacify her warring heart is another matter entirely.
♥♥♥♥♥♥
Eris has won.
Sure, it was a cheap shot, but Melinoë should know by now that she will take any opportunity to fight dirty. She should be basking in her victory; a Cyclops Jerky in one hand and the Adamant Rail in the other, and a beautiful fleet of flaming ghost ships on the water to entertain her. It's only right.
Eris collapses into her chair and stares out towards the Rift of Thessaly. There are no ships and the waters are quiet, for once. She suspects Melinoë sunk a few and they have yet to rise again from the depths.
She won, she reminds herself again, because it does not feel that way.
Eris thinks instead of the memory of Melinoë’s kiss-drunk mouth against her own. Of her two-tone eyes, lidded and desiring. Of her weight flush against Eris's hips. She recalls the whispers of Aphrodite and Hera that had beckoned her closer and told her to open up to what was happening. It still does something horrifically evocative to her — ichor rises high and hot to her face, sweat glides down her palms, and her stomach churns as though she’s flown one too many loops in the sky. Eris drunkenly wonders if she is still under their influences.
Then she thinks of Melinoë’s look of horror and betrayal when Exagryph's final shot had hit home. Of the way her strange, red blood had sprayed from the wound and splattered the fine sand at her feet. Of her gasping, breathless call of "return to shadow, now!" as she tore herself from the beach into nothing, leaving only silence in her wake.
The swells of salt break softly against the shore. The moon shines beautifully over the haunted waves.
It all tangles together within her, pain and pleasure united.
It wasn't like this before. Or maybe it was, and Eris didn't want to acknowledge it, because in doing so she would have to believe her feelings to be real, maybe even reciprocated.
Eris pulls out a Cyclops Jerky and tears the wrapping with more force than is probably necessary. The salt and fat that binds it does little to mask the taste of Melinoë in her mouth.
She spits out the Cyclops Jerky. Throws the rest into the sand, for good measure.
"I won," she says aloud, and then, angry; "I won, damn it!"
She leaps from the chair and glares at the Rift of Thessaly, a substitute target for her wild emotion.
Eris has enough awareness to know when she’s self-sabotaging — that comes with the territory of being the incarnation of Strife, like it or not. She’s not sure Melinoë does.