Chapter Text
- ∞ ☽ ◯ ☾ ∞ -
Melinoë materialised in her arcane circle with an uncommon brutality: on her ass, head pounding and clutching a bruise fast turning her glowing ember ankle a dark shade of purple.
Over the years, she had tended the space around her circle of shadow into a luxuriant haven, damp, warm, quiet; healing. After wincing for a while at the plump frog that had chosen the green haven as her home, Melinoë’s migraine, at least, subsided, giving way to throbbing pain ripping through her ankle and calf.
“I should have known better than to accept a challenge from her, Frinos,” she confided in the frog, “but how was I supposed to ignore it? Hit me as hard as you can… urh, she’s so full of herself! I gave her a good hit in the gut, like anyone would!” The frog’s distant stare never judged. “She didn’t even flinch, Frinos! Then when her turn came I braced properly for a punch but she kicked my ankle. Who does that?” Thankfully, Frinos never answered questions, least of all rhetorical ones. “And you know what she said, Frinos?” Melinoe threw herself on the dew speckled ground and laid there, arms above her head, looking at the night above, before taking on a mock, deeper voice for her amphibian audience: “Learn to block, Princess.”
“Urrrrg!” Melinoë let out a contained yell of fury into a moss covered rock before dragging herself to her tent.
“Mel, you okay?” Bad omen, when the ghost sharing her tent didn’t even put on her vengeful revenant act.
The Princess of the Underworld, still on her butt, sighed: “Yes, Dora. It’s just another night.” She reached for an ointment on her reagent shelf and a thick potholder to rub it on the bruise, then used a fan to revive the heat in her foot. The pain very slowly receded. Dora hovered behind her, an apparition of pure concern. Mel sighed again. “I’m fine, Dora. I’m always fine, you know that. I’m just… ...ashamed.”
Dora tried to retort something but Mel had more frustration to vent. “A wailer got me, Dora, a dumb, easy to dodge wailer. Screamed at me till my head pounded. I, um… I was injured. I couldn’t run, I… I was trained to EVADE, Dora, NOT BLOCK! We’re the Unseen. In shadow. I can’t parry! I’m NOT GOOD AT IT. I’M INEPT!”
“Woah,” the green ghost hovered back, “Chill, Mel. It’s just another night.” Dora faded out of existence.
“Great,” Melinoë muttered to herself, wincing as she got back to her feet. “I’m too awkward for Dora now.”
She took a few tentative steps, then tried to run in place. After a deep inhale, she closed her eyes and attempted to chill, as Dora had enjoined. “All right. If I’m careful, no one has to notice anything’s afoot. Don’t limp. Walk calmly past the Headmistress, ignore Odysseus’ cheerful call for a word with me, walk past her… smoothly, then get to the training grounds and practice, practice, practice. Stay in harm’s way and block. Okay Mel, breathe. Breathe… Go.”
Melinoë pushed a flap of her tent, walked past Headmistress Hecate whose raised eyebrow silently questioned the limp in her step, walked past Odysseus whose look of fatherly concern embarrassed her enough to deepen the red flush on her face, then limped as elegantly as she could right past her, without looking… well, only giving her the briefest, most involuntary side glance… a glance that she immediately regretted.
Nemesis was smirking.
- ∞ ☽ ◯ ☾ ∞ -
"Missed all the fun. But at least you won't have to die just yet, Princess. How’s your ankle?"
Nemesis was standing amidst heaps of wretches she’d just slain, the remains of their souls clinging to existence as agonizing white wisps. They’d soon remember their mindless hostility, but for now, the path ahead was clear and quiet… except, of course, for the seven foot tall goddess with infuriatingly good looking hair blocking her way, both hands resting smugly on her sword.
“Nemesis,” the princess bent her knees into the least polite curtsy the Underworld had seen, head held high, her infernal eye sparkling with contained furor. The goddess blocking her path did not return the civility.
“You don’t deserve the task,” the tall goddess stated bluntly. “Not sure how anyone believes you could ever bring death to Chronos. Hecate’s wrong about you.”
"Nemesis, what are you doing here? Who's standing watch at the Crossroads?"
“Hecate doesn’t know I'm here and you won’t tell her.” It wasn’t even a threat, it was a fact and they both knew it.
Ug, Melinoë grimaced internally, when it comes to verbal parry and riposte I could also use more practice, I’ll give her that. “I have to prove myself to the Headmistress every night, Nemesis. Are you saying I’ll have to go through you as well now? Is that what this is?” Melinoë gestured at Nemesis with her chin as derisively as she could, despite the height difference between them making derision decisively more unidirectional than she pleased.
“Ha!” Nemesis scoffed. “Don’t bother trying to prove yourself to me, Princess. I’m a realist: I know you won’t prevail. You don't have the fire. This isn't personal enough for you.” The little wings floating on either side of her broad shoulders added to her air of self-righteousness.
“Not personal enough? You don't see my mother around, do you, Nemesis? Nor my father, nor my brother. Chronos took them all!” Melinoë had just yelled that last sentence and knew she had lost the verbal sparring match the second she’d lost her cool, but she kept her head held high, hiding an internal scream at the sudden fear that, when she finally reached him, Chronos would turn out to be as dreadfully insufferable as Nemesis; a thought she immediately banished to the realm of the impossible. No one could be as insufferable as her.
“I lost more than my mother, too. And I knew mine. What's yours to you? All you ever did was fall out of her womb.”
"Silence!" Mel’s dagger flew to Nemesis’s mouth in a feral bid to shut her up.
Nemesis blocked nonchalantly. “Aww. You’re cute, Princess. You think you can avenge our families like this? Throwing daggers at a Titan? You think you’ll free Night herself from the stillness she’s trapped in with your moonlight rituals?”
“The Silver Sisters are witches dedicated to the will of Nyx! Don’t deride us.”
“Tsk,” Nemesis jeered. “The will of Nyx. You don’t remember how the night felt when it wasn’t so still. I have a stake in this task greater than you and your Silver Sisters could possibly have, Princess. Think you can avenge Death itself? I’ve toppled unjust dynasties with Thanatos and Megaera… and you? You’ve never even seen your brother.”
“At least you had a life before all this!” Mel was shouting, she didn’t care, she was enraged and just needed to pass through the damned clearing. “Chronos took HAVING A LIFE from me! I’M A WEAPON! A TOOL OF VENGEANGE. My entire existence has been dedicated to training for this task, and NOTHING ELSE.”
Nemesis looked at a rock to the side of the clearing. Her voice got a little deeper, almost like she cared: “It’s unfair, what Hecate is doing to you.”
For a fleeting instant it appeared to Melinoë that the obstacle blocking her path in the moonlit glade had feelings. The moment didn’t last.
“But your entire existence, as you call it, doesn’t even span a single century, Princess.” Nemesis sighed, and looked directly into Mel’s eyes. Nemesis’ gaze was of clear gold, like ambers with sorrow trapped in them forever. “Melinoë, do you really believe the Witch of the Crossroads is placing a dagger in the hands of a baby and hoping it’ll work out for the best? Hecate is wiser than that. We can only assume I’m on guard duty in the Crossroads so that I can handle the task while the Old Witch keeps appearances up with your family. When the deed is done, she can say she’d tasked you with it, say she tried. You’re a political formality. I’m the real plan.”
"HOW DARE YOU?” Melinoë threw herself, enraged, at the preposterous goddess standing in her way.
Nemesis sidestepped and quickly reached the better of the two possible openings in the path ahead, the one that usually led to a centaur heart. Before some black vines closed that option behind her, Nemesis said in a low voice: “Yeah. It’s unfair.”
“Agggg!” yelled Melinoë at the ever watchful Moon, stomping towards the remaining opening, where a few ashes and a lot of enemies awaited her.
The night stood still and silent.
- ∞ ☽ ◯ ☾ ∞ -
“Nemesis?” asked Melinoë, more shyly than when she’d rehearsed this in her head.
The Goddess of Retribution standing guard, bored, in front of her own tent, raised an eyebrow. A few loose locks of hair fell from her bun as her head tilted, slightly amused. Ug, Melinoë suffered internally from her own musings, her hair! I could hate her more freely if she wasn’t so gorgeous! What right does she have looking so good with a frown stuck on her face permanently?
“Princess?” the acknowledgement finally came, detached.
Melinoë took a deep breath. And another.
“I found this bottle of Nectar on my outing last night. I… um… and I was thinking, since… you know… you’re going after Chronos too and I can’t stop you and if we’re going to be rivals in this task, I… um, I guess I might as well honor you as such. So, um, here. To rivalry.”
Melinoë extended her skeletal arm towards her rival, clutching the precious offering in her bones. Golden liquid sloshed around, and stilled. The bottle remained untaken between them.
Nemesis’s gaze darted from the offering to Melinoë.
Few beings could sustain looking into Melinoë’s mismatched eyes for long: the shades of former mortals tended to be made uncomfortable by her infernal red eye, or perhaps the cause of their malaise was the deep, transparent green one, reminder that a part of her was mortal? All she knew was that very few could look into her eyes longer than a second: Hecate, the Silver Sisters… and Nemesis, who placed her foot threateningly between Mel’s own, and brought her forehead so close Mel could feel her breath on the skin of her face.
“What’s the meaning of this, Princess?” The question was a threat.
“I mean it!” Melinoë stood her ground. Just like she’d been trained to dismiss the power difference between the Titan of Time and herself as illusion, she let the height difference vanish from her mind. The eyes of Divine Retribution, transparent gold, were illegitimately mesmerizing. Layers of complexity danced in their depth that Melinoë had never expected to find there: burning anger, genuine curiosity, compassion? And disdain. Mostly that.
“You want to be the rival of Nemesis, Princess?”
They were still staring into each other’s souls, faces a breath apart. Melinoë remained in harm’s way for a valiantly long amount of time without a hint of an evasive move, but Nemesis nonetheless won the staring contest. Melinoë averted her eyes towards the river Cocytus.
Nemesis is right. As disdainful as she always is, she doesn’t lie. Who am I to offer nectar to Retribution Incarnate? She’s toppled dynasties. I’m barely able to limp into Oceanus only to be destroyed by a tacky band of sirens. And I have the gall to walk up to a daughter of Nyx and offer her nectar? I’ll earn the right to mingle with chthonic goddesses in a century or two maybe, when I’m strong enough for the task. Hecate says I’m nearly there, and I naïvely thought ‘nearly’ was next full moon? Hecate is a titaness. Her ‘nearly’ is probably ten thousand full moons. I’m not enough… yet. Her extended skeletal hand, glaring reminder of a novice mistake that had cost her an arm, retreated to her side with the bottle.
But before Melinoë could stash it back in her side pouch, Nemesis brutally snatched it.
“Be careful what you wish for, Princess,” Nemesis warned, casually throwing the delicate offering inside her tent.
Melinoë blinked at the towering goddess with… awe.
“You better make yourself a worthy rival. I’m bored. Could use the distraction.”
“Be careful what you wish for, Nemesis,” replied her rival, a smile forming on her green lips.
“Urh,” Nemesis rolled her eyes and looked away.
- ∞ ☽ ◯ ☾ ∞ -
“The hunt is on,” Melinoë heard whispered from a dark alley as she rushed past two cutthroats, nearly dodging a quick jab to land behind them and backstab both in a swipe of her twin blades. She heard an infernal bird swoop behind her but implode from a precision shot before it could do any damage. With a dagger throw she freed the shades trapped in the glass pylon at the plaza’s center. The city of Ephyra regained its eerie quietude.
The souls of the foes she’d slain lingered as pale green wisps scattered around the pavement. The ones Artemis had shot left a more saturated, bright green ectoplasm. “Fifteen to nine,” Mel counted out loud.
“You’re counting? I was just backing my coven sister up, you know.” Artemis was amused.
“I… bad habit,” Melinoë blushed, “and thank you, Artemis.”
After hugs and a brief exchange of reports on the situation on Olympus and the state of affairs in the Underworld, the Goddess of the Hunt made to take her leave. “Moonlight guide you,” she saluted.
Melinoë didn’t wish to keep her coven sister in the city more than she needed to, but she needed help. “Artemis, wait!” she called, a little desperate, maybe.
“Sister?” The goddess wore a gentle smile as she shifted nimbly on her feet to face the princess of the Underworld, who was breathing a little more laboriously than she wished she did. The incantation allowing her to unravel the Fates’ curse so she could even be on the surface wasn’t perfect. Here, where mortals lived, she felt like she was moving and fighting through water. It’d take some getting used to.
“Um…” Melinoë blushed, “I need hunting advice.”
“Always, sister. What prey are we tracking?”
“Uh, not… uh… Artemis, when you’re on the hunt, how critical would you say is the ability to, um, parry?”
“The critical move is the riposte, Melinoë,” replied the goddess. “A vigilant hunter is keen enough to predict their foe’s move, parry it, and seize that half-second of confusion to hit back. That’s the opening; the chance for a critical strike.”
Melinoë turned to a stone pillar nearby, pretend-parried an attack from this mineral enemy, and drove her second blade towards its center, in slow motion.
“Here,” Artemis chuckled, “let’s trade blades.” She threw over a set of weapons with a turquoise sheen to them. To catch them Melinoë dropped hers, which Artemis caught before they hit the ground, nimble as a cat. Mel turned the new weapons around in moonlight. The blades were wide and their weight felt good in her hands.
“All right, we’ll go slowly,” Artemis declared before swiping a blade towards Mel’s face at a speed that did not qualify as ‘slowly’.
Melinoë instinctively dodged, rushed past Artemis, and went for a backstab, but the goddess had already turned around and was swiping at her with sharp objects again. Mel jumped back.
“Not like this, sister,” Artemis was giggling. “For that good opening, you need to parry. Old Hecate taught you to survive, I can teach you to seize opportunities; to make your foes vulnerable.” To make Nemesis vulnerable is an oxymoron, thought Melinoë, and immediately hated herself for being so obsessed with her. Nevertheless, it was while thinking about her that she parried.
“Good,” said Artemis, letting her arm get pushed away. Melinoë was dumbfounded that she had even managed to do such a thing: she just stood there blinking. “Now, in a hunt, you won’t be able to let eighteen seconds go by, Mel, but let’s pretend you didn’t.”
“The tone is less condescending, but you sounded like Nemesis just now,” giggled Melinoë before realizing she’d just outed her… obsession.
“Is that who’s been troubling you? You’ve been distracted tonight. I felt it. Can’t say I recommend having a crush on any of the children of Nyx, sister, but the heart wants what it wants. I wish you good luck on the hunt. Nemesis, though, wow. You’re as reckless as Zagreus! Can’t say I don’t admire how brazen the Underworld siblings are. But be warned, Mel: She might be a harder catch than defeating Chronos.”
“I’M NOT… I… you knew my brother? Artemis, THAT’S NOT… NO! It’s not a crush, it’s A RIVALRY.”
“Enticing.”
“ARTEMIS!” scolded Melinoë, finally sending her twin blade towards the gut of her best friend and ally. Her wrist was caught in a painful grip before her dagger could touch the Olympian’s skin, but Melinoë internalised the lesson. The one about parry and riposte, not the advice to keep the children of Nyx at bay.
After a few more tries, she was able to anticipate Artemis’ moves, parry, and strike back. “Artemis, how do I thank you for this? Will you accept a bottle of nectar?”
“Hey thanks!” the goddess smiled. Her simple, normal reaction to an offering contrasted so starkly with Nem’s that it sent Melinoë in a spiral, questioning her own tendency to tackle anything in life by first trying to do it the hardest possible way.
“Just, be careful, okay?” pleaded Artemis, “We silver sisters serve the will of Nyx, but don’t get entangled in family complications like our kin on Olympus always do, Mel, promise me you’ll keep it simple, okay?”
Melinoë sighed. “Artemis… What am I doing? I hate her!”
Artemis hooked Melinoë’s blades to her belt and tackled her coven sister into a tight hug. Melinoë allowed herself to melt into her adoptive sibling’s powerful arms for a long, silent while. “I’ll keep it simple,” Melinoë repeated the words to memorise them. Artemis gave her a smile laced with a vein of worry, and vanished in a side alley.
“Artemis, your blades!” said Mel, with only the moonlight and her lifelong vow of vengeance for company.
The night was quiet and still, as it had ever been.
- ∞ ☽ ◯ ☾ ∞ -
“You're late. Already took care of things here.”
Melinoë breathed deeply and took a moment to center herself in preparation for… whatever Nemesis had in mind this time.
“Nemesis, something’s been troubling me. If you insist on trying to hunt Chronos down, why don't we work at it together, at least? Wouldn’t that make more sense than being at each other’s throats every night?”
“Can't be seen with you, and don't need your help, besides. But I get you need mine, so here. Take this, and you never saw me. Got it?”
Nemesis dropped two centaur hearts on the moonlit grass at her feet. If Melinoë avoided making too many mistakes, this could make the difference in getting her all the way across the Fields of Mourning to Tartarus. It took a good eighteen seconds for Mel to get over the fact that Nemesis had just dropped a very valuable bounty at her feet. For her.
Before she took it, she searched her rival’s clear gold eyes for intent, but found only her default unhappiness there.
“How far have you gotten, Nem? In your quest to reach Tartarus before I do? I just want an honest gauge of my rival here,” she asked with a hint of spite on her tongue, and maybe more than a dash of admiration. “I’ll be forthright with you: last night I finally got past the three sirens at the bottom of Oceanus, although it wasn’t long before I had to return. I still have their cursed song stuck in my head! I imagine Scylla and her band drive you absolutely mad,“ Mel laughed at the thought of her tall rival dealing with them, “with all their delusions and false claims that you’re their devoted fan. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind watching you dole out retribution on the sirens, one of these nights. Even if you don’t want to collaborate, can I watch?”
“Oceanus. That’s where you vanish to, past the edge of Erebus. I tried to spy on you but you’re fast, Princess.”
“Wait, you didn’t even know the way? And I just gave it to you? Ugh!” Mel hit her forehead with a palm.
“Hecate has the Unseen all convinced you’re the one destined to take hell back from Chronos. I get no collaboration from any of them. Tsch! Your scrawny ass reeks of Olympian boons, too. Only help I ever get is from your friend Artemis. Don’t know why. But I take what I can.”
“Wait, sister Artemis is helping you?”
“You said ‘you’ with a good amount of disdain, there, Princess. I respect that. Tell you what: I’ll let you get some of that rage out of your system. I’ll count to ten while you try to hit me with everything you’ve got. If you can get even one hit to land, I’ll give you the power I got from the Goddess of the Hunt. Good one. If you can’t, you hand over one of those sweet Olympian boons you have. Deal?”
Melinoë looked up at the moon to collect herself. She’d fallen for such challenges countless times before, and had been punished for it every time. Tonight, however, something in her opponents’ voice sounded like an opening to take advantage of.
“I’ll play along,” Melinoë accepted, calmly.
“One…” Nemesis began counting immediately. Melinoë placed her feet in an alert stance and held the blades she’d gotten from Artemis at the ready. “Two… Three…” Melinoe didn’t budge. “Four. The arrogance! Five. Wasting half your… Six. Opportun—”
Melinoë struck fast as lightning. Nemesis blocked and twisted her buckler to bash it into Mel’s wrist. “Seven.” Mel avoided injury by parrying the move with her off hand and redirecting Nem’s significant power to the side. “Eight?” The taller goddess found herself unbalanced and forced to take a step forward. Melinoë dove in the space thus created between the goddess’ legs, turned, and, taking full advantage of the height difference between them, landed a powerful blow with the pommel of her dagger to her rival’s neck.
“Ninngfff,” Nemesis coughed up. It was the most satisfying sound to ever come out of her. I want to make more satisfying sound come out of her, thought Melinoë before she could banish that idea into the abyss beyond the universe. “Felt something at least,” Nemesis added with performative nonchalance. She was hurting.
“Cough up the boon, Nem.” Melinoë was openly very proud.
“It’s one mistake. Get over yourself.” Nemesis tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. The nonchalance couldn’t quite conceal the telltale stiffness of the little wings hovering all ruffled behind the goddess, hinting at how infuriated Nemesis was with herself, to Melinoë’s absolute delight.
As soon as Mel had claimed her earnings, Nemesis broke into a run for the opening in the old willow tree that led to the hidden fountain in Erebus, but Mel was the swifter runner: even Nemesis herself had conceded she was fast.
The look of shocked fury on Nem’s face as the entrance she aimed to use sealed shut right before her was worth every trial Melinoë had ever endured from her rival.
- ∞ ☽ ◯ ☾ ∞ -
“Nem, I know nectar doesn’t mean much to you, but please accept it. I need to thank you. For making me stronger. For never letting me put my guard down. I mean it, Nem. Thank you.”
Nemesis glanced at her and looked away, coldly.
“Nem, please.”
“Don’t beg!” Nemesis retorted angrily, “Fuck, Melinoë, you sound like you think you don’t even deserve to be in my presence. Grow a bloody spine.”
The barbs hit Melinoë right in the gut, but after a few seconds to get over the pain, she grew half a spine. “And I’m grateful for you calling me out on all the bullshit I tell myself, Nemesis.”
Cold silence.
“So I want you to have this.”
“Fine.” Nemesis took the offering and, to Mel’s surprise, opened it and took a swig that emptied half the bottle. “Now go.”
“Nemesis? What’s wrong?”
“GO. Make me say it thrice and you’ll find out how mortals feel when they die.”
Melinoë could swear she saw her rival’s eyes dampen, but she did not wish to find out if her heritage truly meant she was part mortal.
Instead, she walked over to Odysseus, who once again berated her for even approaching the grumpy goddess of comeuppance. “I must advise you to stay as far away from her as you can, Princess,” he admonished.
Too late, she thought, before heading out for another nightly attempt at reaching Chronos in the depths of the Underworld, I’m almost as obsessed with her as I am with freeing my family from the Titan of Time.
Urh. What is wrong with me? How am I supposed to keep it simple, as Artemis says, when I don’t even understand what’s going on between us?
All I know is, if Odysseus warns me against it, that means he sees something between us. I’m not dreaming it, am I? Sometimes she acts like there’s nothing at all.
Is there nothing between us?
Melinoë had been lonely all her life (she did have a habit of talking to plump frogs), but somehow the feeling had intensified of late. She longed for company. And, when her rival wasn’t so avoidant… rivalry felt better than emptiness.
“I draw you down, O Moon,” Melinoë called at the edge of the ghastly forest she was tasked with crossing.
“The night is still, down here as above,” commented Selene, dismounting her white steed. “Have you any memory of Nyx? She was present when the Titan Chronos took the House of Hades. You were but a few moons old, little star, but you may have felt her presence.”
“I… I have no memory of her, sister Selene. I bear her nocturnal arms. I’m grateful for all the aspects of her presence in my life,” except maybe for Eris always getting in the way and for Nemesis… being… Nemesis, “but I have no memory of her.”
“It was the Night herself who found me, discarded and unwanted, and raised me from my youth. I miss her still.”
“Selene, how was she? Nyx. Do you get your watchful compassion from her? The children of Night who share our space at the Crossroads, Hypnos, Lord Moros… Eris… and… um… Nemesis… can… be a lot, sometimes.”
“In the sky, I am immune to earthly troubles, such as having to share living space with my siblings. Eris opposes everyone, family most of all. Nemesis never treated me as a sister. She inherited her mother's strength, but nothing else. As for Moros, he would only break the fragile hopes of mortals I carry with me on my nightly rides. Do, however, tell Hypnos ‘sweet dreams’ for me, little star, and keep your distance from Strife, Retribution, and Doom, if you can.”
Again. Stay away from them.
Realization struck Melinoë like chain lightning.
They’re all lonely. Eris is lonely. She shoots foot-long nails at people because it’s the only language she’s fluent in. Our scuffles at the Rift of Thessaly are a declaration of eternal friendship to her. Urh, not that I feel ready for that. But I could throw cursed skulls at her less reluctantly if she needs it, I guess… As a friend, though, I suspect I would love Moros. He’s been acting overly formal and reserved, but that might have been his way of giving me what he feels like I should want from him, what everyone wants from him: respectful distance? If I opened up a little maybe he would too?
As for Nemesis… We have more in common than I realized. It’s not just a sense of duty, a preoccupation with justice, or a shared fate to be the hand of retribution… it’s also the loneliness of it all. She’s been bearing it for so long…
Melinoë accepted a flask of healing water and thanked the Moon.
“I am the Eye of Night,” Selene said as they parted, “but you, I think, have come to be her sword. Until we see each other once again under her veil.”
“Farewell till then.” Melinoë found herself alone. Once more.
Am I Nyx’s sword? Beyond the fact that I’m more of a daggers and witchcraft type… I wonder if the Fates have more designs for me than being a weapon.
Melinoë was eternally grateful, of course, to the Moon watching over her, to Hecate who had raised her with razor-sharp purpose, to the Unseen protecting her, to her kin on Olympus helping out in every way they could. In her task, Melinoë was well surrounded.
Yet she was, for the most part, perceived as a tool.
Whereas Nemesis saw her as an unworthy rival.
Nemesis who, in her divine duties, only had herself to rely on. (And Artemis, occasionally?) And… well… if she wishes… she has me, thought Melinoë.
That thought was the first one to ever extend past “defeat Chronos” in the timeline of her internal narrative. Until then, it had always ended there, or somewhere along the lines of "Kill Time, then live happily ever after in the House of Hades.”
On that night, however, Melinoë vowed to herself that, whatever happened, she’d be patient enough to truly get to see Nemesis, not for who she had to be, not as ‘Divine Retribution’ or ‘The Sullen Daughter of Nyx’, but, simply, see her for who she was. Because Nem made her feel seen.
Mel wanted to reciprocate. However long it would take. Millenia if it had to.
She reached the lowest depths of Tartarus that night.
_𓆩ཐིა 💀 ໒ཋྀ𓆪_
The insufferable Princess of the Underworld returned from yet another failed outing with an agitation that was unusual, even for her. She paced the circle around the cauldron, raising her slender arms in incoherent flappings several times as she made her report to the Head Witch.
From her sentry post, Nemesis couldn’t hear what Melinoë was blathering about, but she did hear the Old Witch lose her patience with her and raise her voice, which was even more unusual. “Do you question the efficacy of my shadow incantation? Or Nemesis’ watchful guard?”
Urh. Didn’t take her for a snitch. Nemesis walked unhurriedly to the agitated princess, placed her body resolutely in Melinoë's path, and gave her an opportunity to straighten things up: “Care to repeat what you just told Hecate to my face, Princess?”
Mel looked like hell, hair all over the place with glowing laurels falling off, saffron dress all torn, revealing bad wounds on her thighs.
“Nemesis…” is all she was able to repeat to Nem’s face. Her mismatched eyes were wild and the transparent green one was wet with tears.
“Melinoë was simply expressing concern for everyone’s safety at the Crossroads,” explained Hecate in her usual schoolteacher tone, “since Chronos appears omniscient of her whereabouts within Tartarus. I was reminding her we are not in Tartarus here.”
Melinoë, to her credit, stood her ground a breath away from her rival, but turned to face her Headmistress so she could justify her current state of panic: “As soon as I unsealed the gates he—”
“You can just… unseal the gates to Tartarus? Tsk! I have to go through dog-smelling Cerberus tunnels. Unfair competition.”
Melinoë’s green lips formed the faintest smile through her unrest. She was infuriatingly adorable, even battle-worn and sounding like she was trapped in a nightmare no one else could see. “I heard his voice in my head, he commented on a silk dress Arachne had woven for me, he sees me, Hecate, it’s not a trick, he knows where—”
“You were wearing a dress in battle again? The arrogance. Wish I’d caught up tonight to watch it get torn to pieces on you, Princess.”
“Nemesis, he sees where I am and I am at the Crossroads right now, we have to—”
“Crossroads’ safe,” Nemesis cut her off. “Question my watchful guard in front of Hecate again and I’ll cut you to very small pieces and spread your remains across Tartarus. We clear?”
Hecate was not amused: ”Nemesis, seeing as you have just this moment revealed quite clearly where you have been absconding to nightly, I will choose to attribute Melinoë not ever mentioning it to loyalty, and your desertion of your post to loneliness. Thus, neither of you yet needs to be cut to very small pieces and spread across Tartatus, but know that my patience has limits. Both of you.”
“Loneliness. Psch. Not why I—”
Nemesis’ denial was tersely cut off by the Old Witch, whose patience tonight was, as she’d warned, very thin ice. “Melinoë, you are safe here. Now center yourself.”
Melinoë, still within stabbing reach of her tall rival, remained decidedly beside herself. She threw the full weight of her body forward and hugged Nemesis, arms tightly closing around her rival’s waist, skeletal arm clanking on the armor at Nem’s back. The move was so unexpected that Nemesis petrified in place, floating wings stiff as a scared cat’s tail and arms frozen in a vaguely threatening pose hovering on either side of the Princess of the Underworld.
“Nem,” the Princess said into her chest, “I have no doubt anyone cutting me to bits and spreading my remains across Tartarus would reap divine retribution from you in a fury even your sisters the Furies themselves can’t imagine…” The cold surrender with which she spoke of being killed made it sound like a real possibility. Which it was. Melinoë was fierce, but also part mortal.
Nem’s gut told her instantly that the Princess’ assessment of her reaction to such a grievous nightmare was on target. And in the task to kill Chronos that makes me… …the backup plan? Has… has this been the plan all along? Nemesis’ body turned to ice at the sudden realization that her brother Moros, whose duty it was to announce their impending doom to mortals, had been standing right next to Melinoë’s tent for nights.
She found herself paralyzed in her worst nightmare’s tight embrace. Melinoë kept speaking into Nem’s chest. “...but I have to admit something to you now…”
The Princess loosened her grip and pulled back, only a little, sliding her hands along her rival’s arms to take both of Nem’s petrified hands in hers. She turned to Hecate. “To both of you.”
Hecate cocked her head, tilting her pointy hat, seemingly charmed by the scene, whereas Nemesis still looked like she had seen a gorgon.
“Chronos isn’t the only one talking in my head. I think the Three Fates are trying to communicate with me. When I returned to shadow tonight I had a vision. My father was handing a baby to you, Headmistress. He was in his room. My mother wasn’t there. You protested once before taking me. Is this… accurate?”
Hecate’s face clouded over. She nodded.
“My mother doesn’t know I’m alive…” Mel whispered to herself, still not letting go of her petrified rival’s hands. “I… I saw my father tonight, in the Underworld I mean, not in a vision, he’s been discarded in an old room in Tartarus, bound in chains of adamant. He didn’t know who I was, I had to explain. He looked despondent. I think guilt was weighing on him more than the chains. He didn’t want me to even try to free him; he said it would only raise suspicion. He gave me what power he could. He… I… I felt pity for him. Like I would for anyone in his posture, I… he… he’s… he felt like a stranger to me, Hecate.”
The Old Witch shook her head. “Melinoë…”
“I left him there.”
Nemesis thawed slowly from her petrification to squeeze the hands holding hers.
“I… it felt very different when I saw Night herself in the Fates’ vision.”
“You saw Mother Night?”
“In a vision, Nem. It was heartbreaking. Chronos had trapped her in a moment that would never pass, Hades was calling her name, ‘Nyx, Nyx,’ but she couldn't move or talk, such a powerful being, made completely powerless, and… and…” Melinoe looked into her rival’s eyes, “...she looked so much like you, Nemesis. It broke my heart, it felt personal, like you said before, and…” A tear dropped from her green eye.
The red one was pure rage. She turned to her Headmistress again, tightening the grip on Nem’s hands so hard her nails bit into the skin. “Hecate, if Chronos froze Nemesis in time like that and cut her to pieces and spread her across Tartarus, I would not rest until I had found every piece of her and put her back together to the last hair, so that she herself could take her revenge on him.”
Nemesis paralysed again, not from pondering the unbearable permanence of mortal death, but this time in utter shock that the insufferable Princess of the Underworld had just said the kindest shit she’d heard in aeons.
Mel felt guilty about it. “I know it in my heart, Hecate, I’d… it… Hecate, I’d set the task aside for her. Is it wrong? Apart from that one night when I lost an arm, I had never once, since you took me in, Headmistress, not once even considered setting the task aside,” she was flustered and had difficulty breathing.
Nemesis hid her own feelings in nonchalance, as one does. “I don’t look anything like my mother.” She let go of Mel’s hands to rest them more comfortably away from emotion, on her sword.
“I had only ever imagined Nyx as the quiet darkness of night. She’s majestic. Please take it as a compliment.” The Princess gave Nem her most admiring heterochromatic look.
Nemesis looked away at the cauldron. “No one wants to look like their mother. You can be so awkward sometimes, Mel.”
“In my defense, I was only ever trained to be someone else’s nightmare. I don’t know much else.”
“You’re good at it.” Nemesis gave her that.
“Melinoë…” said Hecate, in a tone resigned to the necessary tragedy of what she had done to the child she had raised. “ ’Tis not wrong! Feeling what you feel is not wrong!”
That her pupil would have even thought it wrong broke the Old Witch’s heart. Obviously, Mel saying I’d give up what I’ve trained all my life for to put my rival back together so that she could have her revenge was neither right nor wrong. It was fucked up.
“Melinoë, I have trained you to remain focused on the task, and you have performed admirably. The love you are feeling…” Hecate gestured, black robes flowing, at the chthonic goddesses before her.
“Rivalry!” choked both rivals, perfectly synchronized.
Hecate chuckled. She sounded uncannily like Melinoë on the rare occasions she did. “Fine. Rivalry, then, is a powerful force unknown to the enemy. We may use it to our advantage.” Because of course, the Old Witch would have her protégé use the fucked up thing she was feeling to her advantage in the task. Whatever Melinoë did, however she felt, the Old Witch would twist it into another tool of veneance…
…and the Princess knew no better than to let her. “I need to go back!” she exclaimed, her thighs still caked in blood, some of which was her own. “He won’t expect it. I know I’ll need a nocturnal arm with range. He has a scythe twice my height, Nem, the reach of that weapon!”
“No way you’re going back tonight,” declared Nemesis forcefully. “You look like shit, Princess.”
“Nemesis is correct,” concurred the Old Witch, “you look like… you must rest. Although do tell what horror in Tartarus you’ve encountered wielding a scythe twice your height?”
“Chronos,” said Melinoë as matter of factly as if she’d strolled an Olympian garden and stumbled upon a nymph.
“YOU FACED CHRONOS?” choked Nemesis and the Old Witch, perfectly synchronized.
“Yes. I entered the House through the river Styx. He was sitting on my father’s throne, it enraged me to see him there. He was waiting for me. I think I amuse him. He called me girl, but nothing that stings,” she glanced at Nem, “I’m used to caustic verbal sparring, his was lukewarm. We fought. He can move so fast it looks like teleportation, and with the moonstone axe I had to get close to him to strike, so… um… I got mowed down like hay.”
“Yet you are still here, having learned more of what it takes to reach our enemy. An achievement that ought be celebrated!” Old Hecate managed to sound solemn even in sheer excitement.
Melinoë had reached the lowest depths of Tartarus and faced the Titan of Time before Divine Retribution, with all her might, ever could. Nemesis was overcome with a flow of feelings too numerous to veil completely in detachment. A dash of envy. Resentment, mostly directed towards herself. The constant nagging sense of unfairness. And something else that bubbled up and came out in a short sound before it could be bottled up with the others.
“Huh,” said Nemesis, and that huh sounded like she was proud of Melinoë.
Mel looked at her tall rival. A corner of her lip rose, slowly, and the young witch was finally able to center herself. She breathed deeply. Three times. It was cute when she did that.
“I’ll go out again. With Revaal or Xinth, I can—”
“Melinoë, our enemy is Time itself,” Hecate intervened. “Be patient and take proper care of yourself. The mortal part of you does need more sleep than an old Titan does. Do not rush needlessly. The task shall only take longer that way.”
“But Hecate, he won’t expect it, if I go tonight I can—”
“MELINOË!” Hecate spoke the name in a voice so eerie it could probably compel Time to flow backwards. It sounded like three voices echoing in a cave. Mel, in her torn dress and disheveled hair, blinked at her Headmistress, muttered “hmgnh… fine,” then walked away… …towards the training grounds.
Hecate, visibly proud of her stubborn girl, nonetheless sighed before deploying the heavy war machinery. “Nemesis, if you would be so kind as to escort the Princess to her tent, I would be much grateful.”
Nemesis smirked. She ran over to the Princess and took her, from behind, one arm behind the knees and one around the shoulders. Melinoë found herself suddenly being carried like a bride.
As Nemesis walked towards the tent at the far end of the Crossroads, the stubborn Princess instinctively tried to free herself, which had the effect of tightening the muscular grip around her.
Melinoë seemed to quickly discover that muscular embrace to be more than pleasant. She twisted her body a little, like a small animal familiar settling in before a nap, and surrendered herself completely, producing a low hmmm that was almost sensual. Her eyes closed. Nemesis felt herself blush.
Hecate, amused, added an instruction. “And do guard your rival’s tent this night, Nemesis, to make sure she does not slip out. She needs rest.”
Nemesis nodded. Melinoë, who twelve seconds ago was running towards the training grounds, pretended to have fallen asleep.
“Disturb me thus, witch, and I shall torment you for— Oh! Uh… H… Hey!” The revenant haunting Mel’s tent shifted forms, confused at the unexpected appearance of Divine Retribution in her hideout.
“Dora, is it?” Nemesis seemed to recall Mel mentioning the ghost, “Help me clean up these wounds?”
Nem crouched by the witch’s bedroll, considered dropping her load there, looked at the ‘sleeping’ rival in her arms, and opted to keep her there a little longer, sitting down on Mel’s bed instead. “Wouldn’t want to wake her up,” she explained, embarrassed, to the ghost. She slowly shifted Mel’s weight into her lap to free one of her arms and settled, cross legged, into a comfortable position. Mel’s breathing was slow and steady. There was little chance she was asleep, but she was good at pretending.
Dora seemed more than intimidated by Nemesis, but she was familiar with her tentmate’s reagent shelf, and she diligently passed along the disinfectant and clean rags, before vanishing to a less awkward part of the Crossroads, if there was.
Nem, with her free hand, delicately cleaned the cuts along Mel’s legs, and one on her cheek, so that by tomorrow night she’d be all healed up properly.
“It’s just us, Mel,” said Nemesis when she was done. “Your tentmate’s gone. We can talk.” Melinoë kept sleeping, her head cradled in Nem’s bicep and forearm.
Nemesis smiled. “You’re cute,” she said, trying to elicit a reaction. Not even a corner of the Princess’ lips moved. “Huh, you really are sleeping. Tsch! You were exhausted. You overexert yourself, Mel. It’s stupid.”
In the pleasantly dim and orderly tent of the Princess of the Underworld, Nemesis found herself alone with her thoughts.
She faced them, bravely.
After a while, she spoke, softly, to her sleeping rival. “Never thought you had it in you. Been standing guard over the Crossroads a few years, now; it’s only recently I realised how far you’d come. I’d underestimated you, Mel.
“The Old Witch, Chronos did something to her; I can feel a burning desire for revenge across a sea, Mel, and hers is well concealed but I can feel it. She passed it on to you and you took it. And now the Olympians are asking for aid, on the surface you were never meant to tread with your ember feet; want you to deal with whatever’s terrorizing them there, a burden that shouldn’t be yours at all… and you took it.
“Thought you were an idiot for even trying to take on tasks too big for you.”
The night was still and silent.
“I was wrong.”
“Not about you being an idiot, Princess. You’re an idiot. No one has any right dumping all these cursed tasks on you like that, but you accept it all. You’re a hopeless idiot.” Nemesis caressed her sleeping rival’s temple and cheek with two fingers. Melinoë let out a long breath. She was as beautiful at rest as she was when she killed seven wretches in one sweeping dagger move.
“But I was wrong about the tasks being too big for you. If you set your mind to it, if you survive long enough, I see it in you, now, Melinoë; didn’t want to admit it, but been seeing it there a while: you can slay a Titan. You’re terrifying, Mel.” Nemesis, for once, let emotion overcome her. A tidal wave of fondness, that rolled over her heart and crashed to dissolve into painful anguish.
“Still fucking unfair, all the expectations shoved onto you like that. You’re part mortal, Melinoë, for fuck’s sake! I can’t convince you to let me handle Chronos for you, not while you still live, I know… I know I won’t ever sway you on this, but for fuck’s sake, Mel… don’t die.”
The Princess, cradled comfortably in the safety and warmth of Nemesis’s powerful arms, mumbled “...t’s a stalkfin!”
“Don’t you dare die.” A tear fell on Melinoë’s shoulder.