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The first thing Scylla sees when she crawls out of the riverbank, coughing and spluttering, is red. Red, red, red, blanketing her arms, dripping off her urchin-hair and tentacles as she painfully yanks herself free from the clutches of the Styx, gritting her teeth as she wipes the blood away from her eyes.
So very typical. Death is gauche, she finds, because no matter what anyone says, it is mostly a disgusting affair. Reforming is a disgusting affair. For things like her, whom the Styx spits back out whole and hearty, reforming feels a little bit like being knitted together stitch by painful stitch.
Perhaps for gods it might be different.
Scylla wouldn't know. She isn't one. She is somewhere in between, not quite human, but not dead—and certainly not a god.
After she's done hacking up the last bits of half-digested blood onto the grey-brown dirt, she looks up. There's someone sitting on the shore, blurry at first, and then coming into horrible clarity as Scylla's eyes get used to working on dry land again.
She knows who it is, even if she's never seen her before.
Gods carry an air around them. They stink of it.
"You," she snarls.
"Me," the woman on the riverbank says, calm, sitting cross-legged and sharpening a sword as long as Scylla is tall. Her voice rasps like something out of Scylla's worst nightmares, like steel scraping over rock, like the creaking of a boat as it dashes against the cliff, like a knife in her ears. It's flat. Monotone. Maybe Scylla might have never heard her speak—the gods watch Scylla, watch all of her kind with the same kind of intensity they reserve for the worst abominations of mankind; but they certainly do not deign to speak to her—but Scylla remembers her just fine.
Scylla bristles. Coughs a little. "Why are you here?"
After all, what could Retribution say to her that she hasn't already heard?
"A deal." Retribution says. Her face is calm, composed.
Scylla regards her. Gods, she's handsome, all edges, all sharp points as she blinks lazily at Scylla. It was a sobering thought.
"A deal?"
Retribution sets down the whetstone at her side, blade flashing as she twirls it languorously in her hands, much like a cat with a toy. All feline grace, predatory reflexes. Scylla keeps her eyes solidly fixated on Retribution's face because she will not shirk from this, damn it. "I know you've been fighting the princess."
"What princess?"
"Don't play stupid." She points the sword at Scylla. Her inky, waist-length hair flutters, tied into a knot at the base of her nape. Her breastplate glimmers, impossibly dark steel made of night and dreams and whatever Scylla sees when she stares into Charybdis's maw, the death-knell before she swallows a sailor whole. Retribution looks at Scylla assessingly, eyes a startling shade of yellow—like cat's eyes, or like—
"I know Mel's been through here," Retribution says, snapping her out of her thoughts. "You bear Descura's mark."
"Oh." Of course. Right. Scylla pretends to think about it for a second—a second she gives herself to calm her racing heartbeat. "You're talking about my newest critic."
"…Sure, let's go with that."
"She was so nasty," Scylla fake-pouts, pulling the rest of her tail out of the gritty pebble-sand and wringing it dry. Rivulets of impossible blood run down her scales and tentacles, trickling through the sand and back towards the quiet, dark river. "She said she didn't like my songs!"
"I heard," Retribution says, dryly. She drops the sword back down at her side, straightens a little in interest. "Sure could hear your scream from halfway across Oceanus."
Scylla narrows her eyes. Red met yellow. "What would you know about music?"
"Nothing," the goddess shrugs. "I just need you to tell me where Mel went after she got past you."
Huh. "Why do you care?"
"She's on a mission."
"And you don't know what it is?" Scylla prods, curiosity starting to bubble to the surface. She tilts her head. Retribution—curiously, Retribution presses her lips together, eyes going flat and steely.
Oh, touched a nerve, have we?
"I do," Retribution says. Her voice scrapes, rough and tangible against Scylla's every nerve. "Starting to think everybody does."
"Time can't be killed, yanno," Scylla says, voice losing some of that shrill fake-laughter she injects into it. These days, she only knew how to sing, and how to be angry, and how to lie. "So what if I help her realize that?"
"You're wrong. Time has to die," Retribution says, eyelids fluttering. "I will kill him. I have to."
Scylla stares at her, for a moment. "You're going against your mistress," she realizes. "Oh, that's too good. Miss, you should have told me sooner!"
Retribution bristles. Oh, that's too good. Scylla almost forgets all about the seething rage she has, bubbling up inside of her like an untapped wellspring when Retribution says: "Forget it. Just tell me where Mel went."
"You haven't even told me what I'm getting in return," Scylla points out. "I thought you were all about equality, no?"
"Well, how's this: I don't send you back to the depths from where you came," the goddess says. She levels a look at Scylla. This time, she doesn't seem amused, or relaxed, or as relaxed as the personification of revenge can get. "Mel has no idea what she's doing. I do."
Something flashes through Scylla. And it isn't anger, nor is it annoyance, or that all-encompassing hunger she's felt for years and years and years since that woman had laid her godsforsaken hands on Scylla and changed her, down to the bone, down to the soul. Not even terror; because Scylla—an eternity on—isn't afraid of much anymore. She's not the same starving, malformed, ugly monster anymore. And she knew Retribution, sure, but Retribution didn't know Scylla.
When Retribution tilts her head, waiting for a response, Scylla looks at her and feels only sympathy. And wasn't that interesting?
"Lady," Scylla says, almost soothingly. "I'm sorry. Yanno, I'd tell you, but as you can see," she gestures behind her, to the still-flowing river—"Your princess kind of killed me there, for a second. I don't know where she went or where she goes. I'd ask, but," she shrugs. "Lady's crazy."
Retribution tightens her grip. Her knuckles—ash-gray, like the color of a corpse's face—tighten on the grip of her sword. "She's not my princess."
Scylla smiles, all teeth. "Is that what you tell yourself?" she croons. And wow, would you look at that, maybe Retribution isn't impenetrable after all. A dark, dark flush spreads across her cheeks.
And Scylla—for half a second, fleetingly—feels envious. Just for a second. What the hell?
"… This is a waste of my time." The goddess turns to leave.
They're somewhere in the Fields. The air is dark and oppressive on Scylla's skin, miasma churning at Retribution's heels. The Underworld churns along because mortals still die even if House is under lockdown; because it's the one constant that has always been there, even when Scylla was alive. Because there has always been two constants following doggedly at Scylla's footsteps: death, and revenge, because that's what she lives for, that's what she drowns sailors for. That's what all her songs are: weapons of revenge. And maybe Retribution knows that too.
Scylla remembers Retribution's eyes on her, all those years ago, when she was changed.
"You know," she calls out to Retribution's retreating back. "If you ever want to find your princess, come to one of my concerts sometime."
The footsteps pause. "Why would I do that?" Retribution asks.
Scylla smiles, even if she knows the goddess can't see it. "Because," she says. "Anything for a fan, right?"
"I'm not a fan."
"You will be," Scylla croons. "Don't be a stranger, Revenge."
A pregnant pause.
"My name is Nemesis," Retribution says, sharp—but not forbidding. "Do well to remember that."
"Nemesis," Scylla repeats, delightedly. She hears Nemesis's footsteps recede into the distance, and she sits there for a long, long while. Long enough for the blood to dry on her hands, in her hair. In her teeth.
Nemesis, huh. Now that is a good track title.