annais min had everything to prove and no time to do it. as one of the five children of the underworld destined to lead the seven on their journey of death and destruction, annais had the fate of the universe resting on her shoulders, holding her do...
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CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: WHEN IN ROME (trigger warning: mentions of self harm and death)
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HER HAIR WAS THE colour of ink bleeding across a page, eyes brown like the hue of a decaying rose, each of its petals fading away. Bones jutting at graceful angles, a voice like honey and poison mixed in a dangerous brew. Areum Min was a walking contradiction, and yet Annais Min couldn't help loving her mother anyways.
She didn't remember much of her childhood, truth be told, only the bad bits seemed to stand out. Finding her mother, who always seemed so happy on the outside, strewn across her bedroom floor was definitely a bad memory, a horrible one, from a night where Areum could no longer take it anymore. Annais tried her best not to think of it. But for six months, she'd pictured the woman's lifeless features with every blink of her eyes. The ones that matched that same decomposing hue.
It started a month after she, Jason and the others returned to Camp Half-Blood. The moon had been high in the sky when she went to sleep. Its light had shone through her window, casting eerie shadows on the walls of the Hades cabin. For what seemed like a second, Annais slept. When she woke, it was in that same light. Only this time, there was someone else in the cabin. She knew it just by a creak of weight against the floor.
Areum.
She stood to the right of Annais' bed, clear as day, merely watching her daughter sleep with vague interest. Annais had frozen (in shock? Fear? She wasn't sure, even now, what emotions had flooded her senses) but she knew she screamed once the woman reached out, pale lips opening to mime silent words as her ice cold fingertips hovered inches away from Annais' face. Annais had sat up, reaching for her ring without thinking twice, but with a sigh that sounded like a wail, the woman had disappeared in a puff of smoke that left a sour scent in the air.
Death. Decay.
Annais hadn't told anyone about it, even when Jason and the likes poked and prodded for answers. For a while, she thought she was finally going crazy. And the last thing she wanted was her new friends and the guy she kind of, sort of, liked to think she was a whole new level of messed up.
But after six long months, she was beginning to think she'd made a mistake.
Their first night on the Argo II, Areum Min woke Annais singing a song that only Annais seemed to hear. Her lips moved, no sounds coming out, and yet Annais knew she wasn't imagining the soft hum of you are my sunshine that seemed to echo within the junctions of her brain. Annais had rolled over, hands pressed to her ears in vain, but the sound didn't leave until the sun began to rise and Rome formed in the distance with battle lines already drawn.
Fucking great. Not only was Annais tired, again, but she was about to meet potential enemies in foreign territory, a time as good as any to need her wits about her.
