la belle dame sans merci | carlisle cullen

64

Minerva had never experienced such needless, nonsensical anger. It was deep seeded, relentless. Sometimes it was at Carlisle, others at her malicious God, others at people she hadn't seen in years. More often than not she couldn't pin point what exactly the catalyst was for the gasoline in her veins.

After one hundred and eighty one years of saying it, it felt ridiculous to still be angry about how unfair it all was. The general unjustness of the life she'd been sentenced to. Everything that had ever gone wrong could be boiled down to that one simple, universal issue: life was unfair. Hers just happened to be a touch less fair than most.

The karmic pendulum never seemed to sway in her favour, not that she deserved such a thing. She'd still appreciate some kind of break, some sort of light in the darkness since she'd estranged herself from her last one.

As a result of her foul mood, Minerva was once again falling back on her old habits. There was no better remedy than a little gruesome murder. Though her conflict with Hecate had certainly taken the little pleasure she could derive out of it. Even the boost of adrenaline that followed felt cruel, like a back handed pat on the back. Congratulations, you're finally doing the bare minimum. Don't forget, you're still useless. Of course, that was Minerva's modernized interpretation of exactly what Hecate would say.

Somehow her archaic speech patterns made everything sting more. As if her disappointment was ageless, transcendent. There was nothing right she could do. Whatever her perilous, pitiful purpose was, she wasn't living up to it. Then again, if she knew she might not fuck it up so badly. Well, she probably would. At least it would be an informed fuck up for once. That would be quite the change.

Minerva found the most important component to her commute to the city was the soundtrack. If the music wasn't right, neither was her headspace. It was a good way to channel her anger, to focus it into the right conduit. For that reason, she'd burned a CD. She couldn't rely on the radio to give her just what she needed.

The CD with 'SONGS FOR KNOCKING SKULLS' scrawled on it along with a list of songs on the bottom half, that had been smudged by the drag of her hand over the wet ink:
Rebel Yell
Head Like a Hole
Blitzkrieg Bop
Rock You Like a Hurricane
Ballroom Blitz
Machine Gun
The playlist went on but she'd run out of room. Towards the bottom of the disk, the writing was so small it became practically unreadable. Regardless, she was channeling her frustrations into singing along with Billy Idol's gruff voice as she shot down the highway.

Minerva had never been to Olympia, though it was technically state's capital. She wasn't making the extra 50 miles to Seattle for purely irony's sake. She'd been to the real Olympia, a century ago. It had been a great trip and the last time she'd been to Greece. 1896, the first modern Olympics. She and Mars had made the trip to Athens, intent that they would tilt the odds in Greece's favour.

Of course, the fucking Americans had beat their home country out by one. A loss Minerva was still, quietly sore about. They'd made the trek to Olympia following the loss. Minerva could practically hear her brother's voice in her ears, cussing out the Romans for outlawing all "pagan" rituals. She'd been too mystified to share his anger. There was so much dormant energy, lying quietly in altars splayed across the country. In all her life, she'd never felt anything like it.

It drove her mad that they hadn't explored more. Minerva had wanted to sink her teeth into the country, to get to know it its a liberated state. Mars had dragged her back to the north, the more sensical of the two for once. The last thing they needed was for history to repeat itself. One misstep and it would have.