Katoptris

Book 2 ~ Part 3

"Shhh. It is OK. I am here, my friend."
"But it's not OK. It never has been."
They had this conversation far too often. In the dead of night. In the Castellan family home in New Rome. They spent one or two nights a month there, depending on how much time they could get off. The days were spent in the city, or wandering around New Rome and Temple Hill, and being teenagers. The nights were spent on the couches downstairs (of which there were several) if you were Gwen, Dakota, Reyna or Courtney. Octavian and Jason shared the former's room. Bianca and Megan shared the latter.
The daughter of death, as she had been known around Camp Jupiter over the past year, was currently holding her friend to her chest, as they listened to the noises of the night. She ran her fingers down the blonde's hair, thinking it was too long, and did not suit the girl, but whatever she liked, Bianca would not judge.
"Megera. Shhh. Quiet now."
Megera. Bianca had called her friend that accidentally one night while watching a terrible animated movie about the gods (at least the songs were good) and it stuck. Not long after, she started calling Octavian "Octavius", formal names just seemed right to her.
"But Bi, I've lost too many. I can't loose you too."
"I am right here. You will not loose me."
Bianca had heard the rumours, Courtney even told her the truth behind them. Over the last few years, besides Courtney and Octavian (and probably only them because they were family), Megan had lost every friend she'd known at Camp Jupiter:
Katherine went insane and was supposedly at the hospital in New Rome. If Megan tried to visit, she became violent.
Ruth died in battle, but it could never be confirmed nor denied that she took a fatal wound for Megan.
Rose disappeared. Nothing concrete is known concerning it other than being seen with Megan before she went missing.
Bianca believed she may be Megan's only friend, and she was not going to abandon her like the gossips said she would.
"I shall tell you a story as you fall back asleep."
Megan looked up at Bianca with tear streaked cheeks. "You need to sleep too."
"I shall after you are once more under Somnus's spell." Bianca did not sleep much, perhaps 3-4 hours a night, and they both knew it, but maybe she could rest tonight if her friend did too. "Once there was a girl born in Italy, but not the Italy you know. This was many years ago, after the Great War, though they could tell another was on the horizon. When the second war began, her mother brought the girl and her younger brother to the states. Now, these siblings were no ordinary children. They were demigods, children of the Underworld, and the Lord of the Sky knew they could not live. But their father, he-"
Megan was shaking her face back and forth across Bianca's chest. "No. I know where this is going. I know about the pact. Somehow, Jason could be born, and Ruth, but no. That can't be you."
"Just listen. Their father was able to protect the children, but their mother paid the price with her life. The children were locked away for seventy years, until their father felt it was time to bring them back into the world. They barely aged. It felt like only weeks had passed, not decades, but they barely remembered their lives, as they had been bathed in the River Lethe. Megera, forgive me for not telling you sooner, but no one can know. There is a prophecy among the Greek demigods, at the place where my brother is. I do not know the full extent, but a Greek child of the three sons of Saturn is meant to save the world. Father knew it could never be me because I am Roman. I never wished to leave my brother, but I believe Lady Diana saw something in my future, which led me to you."
Megan didn't say anything for several minutes, and Bianca thought she was asleep until she spoke in a voice so quiet, the snores coming from down the hall sounded louder.
"Once there was a girl who's mother didn't want her. A girl who's father was a god and couldn't take care of her. He left her on a porch, in a home which housed a different child of the gods, one who was already starting school. But the mother in that home was cruel. She may never have wanted the first child, but the second one wouldn't have been brought into the house if her own daughter hadn't insisted. Over the next several years, the demigod daughters became close, but not close enough to save the unwanted daughter from the mother's wrath. Not close enough to be rescued from the home when the older daughter finally left. And then she found her brother. And he accepted her when no one else would. But her friends have all left her, no matter what, they never stay."
Megan was quiet again. Bianca just held her tight and listened to the uneven breathing.
"I like you, Bianca. I've liked you from the first moment we met. Out in the desert, I could see something in your eyes, and it just...shined."
"Megera, I-" For once, Bianca was speechless. Sure, she had thought about this, but never thought it would be a reality.
"I don't want anyone to know. It will ruin you. The Legion may never accept us, not after my last few friends."
Bianca was not going to press the issue, but her heart was going crazy in her chest. She leaned down, her lips right beside Megan's ear. "Megera, I like you too."
--
Bi was sitting beside the goddess, as the boys rested. Indeed, there was an army of monsters outside the glen, and Bi figured that was the army Juno warned of.
Maia hummed to herself and smiled as her sheep passed her. "You are worried about your friends."
Bi opened and closed her month before she spoke. "How did you know that?"
"Eyes can tell a lot about someone. I once wore than same expression, as I longed to protect my sisters. You fell the boys may not return home, that you may not return home. Perhaps speaking of it shall help."
"Jason hardly leaves camp. I am surprised we have yet to meet a monster. Perseus must still have friends at the other camp. He was always so likeable."
The goddess picked up a sheep and held it as a normal person would hold a dog or cat or perhaps a rabbit.
/To be normal.../
Bi smiled for a moment, remembering the times her best friend would say that.
"And you? Is there anyone waiting for you?"
"Maybe Octavius, but we were both waiting ourselves. Juno took my best friend last winter, and even his gift of prophecy has told little of where she may be."
"You know where she is." The goddess replied bluntly. "I see only two possible outcomes to this quest. Either you remain true to you people and free Letus or you run off now and rejoin her and your home falls."
Bi shook her head. "There must be another way."
"There isn't." The goddess picked at the sheep's wool. "Let me tell you a story of the Trojan War, but not in the way you know it. This story begins on Keftiu, many years before."
--
The labyrinth which was their home was a glittering jewel of the sea, but that was before the Athenian had come and murdered so many, had run off with a princess, and left the royal family in pieces. When not with the animals, Xenodice would wander the halls, drifting from one place to another. She had lost the love of her life, and yet, Acalle got to keep hers. Perfect Acalle. She had disappeared for over a year, and returned when their half brother died, when their sister ran off with the Athenian who killed him, and she still got to be queen and marry her love.
Not that Xenodice was envious of Acalle having the crown. She never wanted it. No, Acalle had signed Icarus's death warrant, and took her anger out on Xenodice when he died escaping.
But Acalle got to marry Deucalion, their brother, who had somehow survived the massacre that night.
Xenodice liked her nephews, Indomeneus and Aethon, though she didn't like how Deucalion treated them, or usurped the throne from Acalle and she did nothing to stop it, or how he married off their youngest sister to the man who destroyed their family.
Yeah. She really didn't like her brother.
Xenodice wandered through the halls, coming across her brother, the /king/, yelling at Aethon once more. Indomeneus was the perfect one. Aethon was never good enough.
"No! You must walk like this! Carry your arms like this! Try again!"
"But father-"
"Perhaps I should send you off to that camp. The centaur can train you and I can be rid of you."
"No, father please. I'll do better."
Xenodice peered around the corner, watching Aethon walk as his father did.
No, wait. That isn't true.
She was walking as her father did.
Deucalion was standing to the side, tapping his foot impatiently as she walked around the room.
Xenodice gasped. Aethon was a girl? She didn't have her usual armors and robes on, just a simple tunic.
And she was definitely not a boy.
"An heir. Aethon is the true heir."
Deucalion turned on his sister, rage in his eyes.
"You have always caused problems."
He pulled his sister into the room and slammed the door shut, pinning Xenodice to the wall.
"And you should never have been king."
He sneered back at her, Aethon pulling at his robes.
"What happened to you? Ever since that night, you've never been the same."
"Why would I be? I lost my other half that night. We were one soul, as all twins are. But perhaps you would like to join our fallen family."
Deucalion was choking her, his hands wrapped around her neck.
"Father, no! You can't!"
But he did. And Xenodice fell to the floor. Never to wake up.
-
Aethon was sent to that camp. She was one of a kind. Or, the first of a kind. One of those two.
Everyone knew she was the great granddaughter of Zeus and Helios, and a prince of Keftiu, but they didn't know her mother was a goddess.
Well, she did tell one person her secrets. The facts that she was a girl, not a boy, though no one could guess that by looking at her (in her later years, she bound her chest, so it would look like a man's, thinking she would never have children) and that her mother was the goddess of war and the woven arts.
Her best friend, Helen (yes, that Helen) was a daughter of Zeus, making them distant cousins or something.
They were inseparable, until Helen was to be married. Then, her new husband took care of her and Aethon went back to Keftiu. Her brother was now king, their father had died during her years at the camp. (She probably should have felt some remorse over that, but didn't. Aethon's father was a jerk.)
And then Helen just had to run off to Troy. She was a flirt to begin with. (That thing with her and Theseus? Yeah, she /wanted/ him to kidnap her.) And Aethon's brother just had to place his solders on the Greek side.
Meaning Aethon and Helen were on opposite sides of the war.
And when it was finally over, Aethon left. She was done with the Greeks and the Kefti and wanted a fresh start. Her boat was swept off course and she landed with the lotus eaters when she was nearly twenty. She spent centuries there, barely aging, and having a blast. When the Olympians moved west, and crossed the ocean, Aethon sneaked out for the day. She knew the labyrinth inside and out. She was born there, and as the years past, it grew, and always had an entrance into the lair of the lotus eaters.
It was that night, in France, during the rein of King Louis the XIV, the Sun King, where she met the trickster.
He was perfect.
She was perfect.
And together they were perfect.
--
"Until she disappeared the next morning, and rejoined the lotus eaters. Several years ago, she showed back up, had a baby. She couldn't keep her because the baby was Roman. And my son couldn't take her because he's a god and very busy."
Bi refused to look at the goddess during the story, but she understood everything perfectly. "My Megera, is a daughter of Minerva and Mercury?"
"Indeed."
"Did her mother even want her? Could she have even raised her? Binding her breasts, would that have-" Bi did not finish her statement, feeling rather sick.
Maia placed an arm around the daughter of death's shoulder. "All mothers love their children. Whether or not they can raise them lovingly is another story."
"Megera's stepmother was like that. She said she couldn't love her, but she continued to provide for her. Why was she placed in such a horrible home?"
"And if my son had placed Megan somewhere else, would she have ever made it to camp? Would you have ever met? Would you have liked each other? We cannot answer these questions. We pick up the pieces and build something new. We-"
The goddess froze, listening to something in the distance. "Wake the boys."
Bi did as she asked. They stepped into the chariot and Maia pushed the sheep into Bi's hands. "Go now, while you still have a chance."
The army of monsters burst into the glen as the boys launched the chariot into the sky. Bi looked down as the sheep became fauns and rushed at the enemy, with Maia in the lead.
--