Defixio

Zeus Vs The Water Owl

AN: I wrote this chapter listening to P!ATD's "Death of a Bachelor" album on repeat; I figured that this song would work the best for it.

Zeus was wandering around Nashville, Tennessee: the streets were full, and people were everywhere. Some were wearing business casual, some wearing rather revealing, skin-tight clothes (not that Zeus was complaining, of course.) 

He was growing tired, and once again, his stomach was growling with much ferocity. This eventually forced him to enter a bar as the sun began to set below the horizon of oddly shaped buildings.

The music pulsed through his whole body as Zeus entered the building. He walked towards the bar, which was quickly filling up with people in cowboy hats (well to Zeus, they were just odd looking hats, not everyone knows Nashville Tourist Chic). Zeus sat down at the nearest barstool and ordered whatever a Long Island Iced Tea is. He downed it once it was served. 

Then another one.

Then another one.

The feeling that was raging through his body was unearthly; it was as if he were a god again. His whole consciousness seemed to shift: he could no longer focus on where he was or what the man was telling him. The words went through one ear, something about being "cut off," and out the other. Soon enough he seemed to draw a crowd, and he felt a slap on his back, maybe from a supporter. He turned to look at that the newly found follower to see a man, most likely just as drunk as Zeus was. He was talking about something along the lines of male oppression, and from what Zeus was able to comprehend, Zeus decided he liked this man very much. 

Eventually, the two men stumbled out of the club, with no sense of where they were or where they were heading. Man, Zeus had no idea how great drinking could be! 

Did he say that out loud? Nah, the cowboy next to him was just laughing at him once again for who knows why. 

The two newly formed misogynistic friends then began their treck around Nashville, entering every single bar and being asked to leave by almost every one of them. In each bar, Zeus discovered that dancing is about butts now, and that was a most definitely plus side to whatever this world is.

A definite plus.

After about five bars, six clubs, two underground raves, and five accidental drag shows, Zeus was hardly coherent, and his $2,000 was beginning to run low (not that he knew that money was important in his drunken. . . or sober. . . state.) The two men began just walking without any sense of direction.

And suddenly they realized that they had meandered away from all the sights and sounds of the city and were surrounded by trees and greenery. Cenntenial Park was deserted; no one, other than Zeus and his fellow drunk misogynist, was in sight. The two continued to walk, blabbering in slurred speech about the "under-represented male populous." 

Quite ironic, I know.

And just as their conversation was reaching the climax of stupidity, Zeus' eyes landed on Nashville's famous Parthenon replica. (Remeber, he does not know that he is, in fact, not in a weird version of Athens, and he is very drunk.)

So when Zeus realizes he has stumbled upon one of his hottest daughter's temples, he was ecstatic, so ecstatic that he abandoned his drunken friend and ran to the top of the temple's steps, and inside where his eyes caressed a replica of the large statue he had witnessed erected  (well the original anyway). "ATHENA!" he shouted at the statue, "GE' ME OU' OF 'HIS HELLISH..." he leaned over and asked the man now beside him, "wha's the word I wanna say?"

"A bad nightdream I think, my goo' ma'," the drunk cowboy responded with his drunken, slurred drawl.

 "Yea!" Zeus shouted at the statue again, his slurring becoming the gibberish of a toddler just learning consonants, "GE' ME OU' OF 'HIS HELLASH BAD-NIGH'DREAM!" He pounded his fists in a pathetic display of anger on the base of Athena's golden statue. "I'LL DO ANY'HING!"

And that's when it all turned to shit.

Zeus ran out into the dark grass, straight toward the illuminated pond, where a poor duck was night swimming for some reason. 

Oh, this poor duck.

Do you ask why a poor duck? Well, Zeus jumped into the pond in hopes of grabbing this duck, and he did succeed briefly until the duck slapped him in the face with its wing and tried to fly away. "I'LL CAPTURE THIS WATER OWL, SO YOU CAN TAKE ME HOME!" Zeus shouted at the top of his lungs, lunging for the duck again. 

It was a true spectacle, especially for Athena, who was invisibly sitting on top of her fake statue. Seeing her drunken father half drown/half swim around a lake in order to catch a duck let her forget what Apollo had said to her earlier that week-- that sick bastard tried to flirt with her again-- boy, he had a death wish.

Zeus, meanwhile, had managed to catch the duck. What an accomplishment, am I right? 

He only suffered major bites and kicks to the groin (yes, in the same place.) Zeus had apparently never realized how sensitive that area of the male body was-- being a god and all. After a painful five minutes (which to Zeus felt like a couple of hundred years), Zeus was able to hold it down at the altar. . . not that Athena had an altar in the Nashville Parthenon (a real one anyway). . . and was able to begin the process of calling Athena-- you know, all that ancient Greek stuff they learn at age ten-- and took a knife out of the cowboy's hand. He positioned it over the duck who was very very unamused, and as he was about to cut the duck open, he heard a very loud siren.

Blue lights flashed through the temple, illuminating Zeus' drunk face, and forcing him to look at the figure walking towards them. "Put down your weapons and step away from the duck," the voice was loud and made Zeus' head pound. The cowboy put his hands up and walked away from Zeus looking like he was about to throw up. "I said, put down your weapons and step away from the duck!"

Zeus did not know what to do-- even though it was very simple.

"PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPONS AND STEP AWAY FROM THE DUCK," the man in the uniform, that looked slightly familiar, pulled out a weird looking object and pointed it at Zeus.

Zeus put down the knife and stood up, releasing the enraged duck. He crossed his arms instead of doing what his friend was continuing to do-- and signaling for him to do. Zeus laughed, and then his laughter was cut short by nausea. The police officer edged closer to him, and just as he was about to cuff the drunk and disorderly man to the other drunk and disorderly man, Zeus threw up. . . all over the torso of this poor, poor police officer.

Athena, meanwhile, could not stop laughing as she watched the rest of the scene play out. Zeus was so screwed (and not in the way he normally liked it). Unlike Hera, who was actually trying to survive in this world, Zeus just thought that he could scrape by until he became famous. Well, he had another thing coming.