Medusa (A Fairytale Green FanFic)

Chapter 2.5: The Shores of War

The song is what I imagine playing in the background of the fight.

Stone's POV

(Events right after Ella leaves the ice cream parlour.)

Ella haunted me. I could feel her chocolate eyes pinning me down – daring me to say something foolish – could see her lips twisting into a smirk as she verbally jousted, swiftly unseating me with a few sweeps of her tongue – hear her laugh echoing in my cavernous head, taunting me, daring me to think for one second that I was worthy of her.

I sat in the child-sized chair of the ice cream shop, wondering, in equal measure, what the actual fuck just happened... and when it could happen again.

Brennan echoed my thoughts on the matter. "What the hell was that?" His laugh did not have the same effect as Ella's did, but still, it brought me back to the moment.

"No clue," I muttered, still trying to get my brain to catch up to my heart.

"We gotta go," Brennan urged me, standing up from the table. I was in no such hurry, but I knew I had to go. Mechanically, I stood up and followed Brennan out of the door and into the slurry of humans frolicking in the pier. It didn't even register to me that I was going to fight. My mind was on vacation. I looked around in every direction looking for my green light, but she was gone.

Brennan said some words, but not a single thing registered.

Ella. Ella. Ella.

Consumed. Utterly consumed.

Wooden docks turned to pavement and pavement turned to sand, but it was all the same to me.

This was the first night of the organized fight where it was marketed at all. Some of the other fighters and I had fought on the beach here before, but not specifically for bets or views. This was the first night of Litora Bello – The Shores of War.

Registering that we were stopped, I took note that we were now congregated on the beach. I took the time to retreat back into my mind.

Feeling hands on me, I nearly went to pummel the offender until I realized it was just Brennan. "What?" I asked gruffly, wishing I was still in Ella's presence. She was a balm to existence itself.

"It's your go, Aphrodite."

I nearly laughed. Was I that obvious?

"The fuck's up with him?" I recognized Hendrix's voice, and I rolled my eyes at his question. I did not answer him, and instead peeled my shirt off and kicked my shoes to the side. We had a truck with a bunch of shit parked on the beach nearby, so I padded across the cool sand to deposit my stripped clothes in lieu of some shorts. The quicker the fight, the quicker I got to go home and figure out what the fuck a Lurch was.

"A girl," Brennan stated, as though it was an incredibly obvious thing. A girl, I thought darkly. A fucking goddess, more like. A divine deity that deserves far more than the simple title of 'girl'.

"Ah."

Rifling through a box at the back of the truck, I found what I was looking for and put the shorts on. I rolled my shoulders and jumped up and down a couple of times, attempting to ground myself, feet sinking into the sand. I wiggled my toes. The others approached me and we stood around the truck as we organized ourselves.

A small group of us were huddled away from the gathering crowd including myself and Brennan, Vulcan and Neptune respectively. Reed, dubbed Mercury, was talking to a couple of others too, Ares and Zeus, but I couldn't remember their names, nor did I care to.