A Sister Fighting In A War In Her Brother's Armor

XXI Monster

When you decide to post the next chapter early because you know you're going to be busy with your Ag project after school

Me: *Tired and can't have coffee/energy drinks because the caffeine makes me more tired* "How did I use to choose to wake up at 5:00 in the morning willingly?"

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Ctimene was walking out of the cave the prophet was in when she saw a few feet away the docked ship but she didn't rush back as she looked at everything around her, her eyes fell onto Eurylochus who was holding Odessa in his arms as she laughed at how he swung her in the air they didn't see Ctimene who was a good distance away having some of the best vision she could have seen them from three miles.

"How has everything been turned against us?

How did suffering become so endless?

How am I to reunite with my estranged?

Do I need to change?"

Eurylochus was unaware that Ctimene was looking at him and Odessa, he just smiled widely watching Odessa play. He could tell Odessa was trying to cheer him up from what had happened today.

He didn't notice Ctimene standing in her spot looking at them. He just continued having his moment with Odessa as Polites stood nearby, before Astyanax nearly knocked him over in a hug before the two men laughed.

"I'm surrounded by the souls of those I've lost

I'm the only one whose line I haven't crossed

What if the greatest threat we'll find across the sea

Is me?"

Ctimene dropped to her knees near a puddle of water, gazing into her reflection, and then her surroundings went dark. There her reflection in the water turned into

that scary figure, the monster she always feared she'd be one day.

"What if I'm the monster?

What if I'm in the wrong?

What if I'm the problem that's been hiding all along?

What if I'm the one who killed you

Every time I caved to guilt?

What if I've been far too kind to foes

But a monster to ourselves?

What if I'm the monster?"

As the dark closed around her the images of her mother and Polites, Odysseus, and Penelope, and Astyanax and Odessa flashed in her mind. A reminder that she had a lot to lose if she did do something she wasn't proud of and lost everything she loved.

Ctimene then started to justify her foes giving them reasons that she understood for why they did what they did but when it came to herself she started to doubt.

"Is the cyclops struck with guilt when he kills?

Is he up in the middle of the night?

Or does he end my men to avenge his friend

And then sleep knowing he has done him right?"

"When the witch turns men to pigs to protect her nymphs

Is she goin' insane?

Or did she learn to be colder when she got older

And now she saves them the pain?"