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Eris trapses through The Crossroads with an air of bitter haughtiness, airing out her wings so that the grit of sand can fall out and be replaced with the heavy humidity of the forest; one unpleasant feeling for another.
Not as unpleasant as being ignored.
Charon has no intention of giving her the time of day…er, night. Not like he wanted to…um, speak to her anyway. Eris gets the feeling that Charon doesn’t appreciate her impressions of him. He just goes on counting his coins and looking at his inventory…and whatever else. So boring! She lets the candy wrapper in her hand and the crumbles on her fingertips fall into the flowing water; it goes unnoticed by the boatman.
Nem is sulky and sour and no fun like always. She’s sitting there in her usual spot when she’s not out and about, maintaining her weapon.
“Go away, Eris.” is the warning that comes from Nemesis when she sees raucously styled reds, greens, and blues approaching with the crinkling sound of another opened candy bar.
“Seems like you failed once again. Aww!” Eris leans into the sitting Nem, hovering right next to her face, chewing obnoxiously. “Did you run into some trouble out there you couldn’t hack to death?”
Nemesis turns a rigid golden eye to her sister. “Eris. I’m not in the mood.”
“Maybe you’ll get ‘em after a few more tries, hmm?” The provoking goddess quirks her head in a different direction with each addition. “A dozen more times? A zillion?”
Nemesis stabs her blade into the ground with enough fury to draw the attention of a few nearby shades, who subsequently dissipate out of rightful fear. She begins to stand to her full height. “Say that again and I’ll make sure you can’t utter it for a third.”
“Ugh. Whatever. You’re no fun.” Eris stalks off, crumpling up another wrapper and throwing it behind her as she walks off, angling its trajectory just right so she can hear it hit her sister’s thick head.
She watches Hecate and some unremarkable sisters chant some witchy mumbo jumbo around the cauldron as purple and green plumes drift away from it. Freaky. But she knows better than to mess with them. “Lest you suffer the consequences,” warned Hecate last time Eris tried to interfere with anything.
And suffer she did.
She discards and kicks around a balled-up wrapper until it goes too far out of the path she’s walking on.
Odysseus studies a map of what looks to be the underworld. Or something. She doesn’t care. And he doesn’t turn up an eye when a half-eaten candy bar drops from her hands. Oops! Well, once it’s touched the ground…it’s no good. It makes a dent in the thick patch of moist grass it falls into.
Eris sighs as she finds herself staring at the springs. Not too long ago, she was in there! In the unpleasant heat where her plumage got freed of the dirt in the feathers, and she struggled to find a comfortable sitting position on the stone. Her dark makeup that made her look more intimidating was washed away, leaving only her emotions to tinge her face. In the scalding water whose ripples and jets just so happen to frustratingly obscure the view of what lied just below the surface. No matter how she tried to angle herself to look, she couldn’t fulfill her curiosity.
“Are you uncomfortable…? Why do you keep shifting around like that?” asked the troublesome individual who invited her to the springs.
“Oh, no reason. I’m just not used to this...eugh…feeling of purification.”
“Probably a sign.” mused the individual in response.
Felt just like last night. Was it? Eris can’t remember. She picks up a small stone and skips it across the water only to watch it sink where she can’t see it.
This place is soooo boring, she thinks as she goes to perch at her usual spot and glare at people.
Moros purposefully avoids her gaze as she walks by. Has anyone ever told him how stupid his “antlers” look? She makes a point to drop another wrapper near where he stands.
Then, after however long of waiting and planning and scheming, she can feel a shift in the air. She’s not sure how she can perceive it. She can just tell.
Trouble’s back, she thinks, and perks up a slight bit. Her wings puff up a tiny amount.
Eris glances around to see if she’s come out of her tent yet. She cranes her head over some bushes. Nope. Not yet. It’s a similar feeling she gets when she can hear the clamor and explosion coming from a distant ship traversing the rift of Thessaly. Anticipation tingles in her; it manifests in the restless tap of her trigger finger and in the buzzing in her mind.
So she waits…
After a few minutes that feel like hours, Eris’s legs get fatigued from standing on the tips of her toes, so she sits down in the grass.
And waits…
Ugh, where is she? Thinks Eris as she picks at her feathers.
Her eyelids begin to feel a little heavy. It wouldn’t hurt if she just closes them for a second. She’ll just listen for approaching footsteps.
…and…waits…
Maybe she didn’t want to talk to me tonight…whatever…is her last conscious thought before drifting off to sleep.
There’s the feeling of something sharp and light hitting her face in a dream she’s having.
Then again. A bit harder.
“Ow…” she grumbles before shifting, her eyes still shut.
“Is……” calls a distant voice.
A third item hits her with quite the force on her forehead.
“Eris!”
So trouble decides to rear its ugly head tonight after all. Well…not necessarily “ugly”...
“Mmm…What do you want, babe?” Eris, mind still hazy with sleep, rolls over to find herself looking at Melinoe, towering over her, arms full of…candy wrappers.
“I want you to stop leaving your rubbish all over the Crossroads, that’s what. Do you know,” Melinoe hisses, staring dead into Eris’s eyes, “I essentially had to walk all over and pick up all of these? From the creek, by the cauldron, all over your little secluded corner…”
“I have every right to do so, don’t I? Besides, it’s not bothering anyone, is it?”
Eris can almost see the forming and dissipating of harsh words forming on Melinoe’s tongue. She sighs. “But it's a pollutant. Of course it's going to bother people. It'll ruin the environment.”
“Other people’s feelings aren't my problem!”
“Whatever, Eris, if you really feel so inclined to just throw your wrappers on the ground…just try to…constrain…it to your own space, okay? So I can at least keep it at bay.”
Melinoe walks away, multitude of wrappers still in her arms, to be disposed of later.
Eris pries herself off the ground to watch her go about the rest of her business, talking to whomever else.
“Well then,” she huffs, and pulls out a candy bar. “Whatever you say, Trouble."
It's gone in three bites, and she lets the wrapper fall to the ground.
“Come get it.”