His bowstring tautened, obeying the tug of the god Apollo’s fingers easily. The war had been beneath his notice till now, the crashing of spears and shields a minor incident to a greater cosmic pattern of sun rise, sun set, the shifts of constellations. Their streams of blood a mere trickle to the rivers of time - all was relative, or the gods would lose their minds over every mortal cause. Yet here he was, benevolent in the face of Chryses’ appeal, and not for Chryses alone - for his daughter, too, crushed into servitude in Agamemnon’s brutish grasp.
Sunlight spilled over the horizon, its first rays mercilessly beating down upon the fields beneath the gates of Troy. A stage set, a theatre of war about to enter its next act. He looked to where the Achaeans camped and heard the sounds of an army rising with daybreak, the weary clank of armour that had suffered nine years. Time and war wrought violence on even the youngest of them. Apollo, himself bright with the harsh, obtrusive glow of youth, had seen boys age too quickly.
“Nine long years,” he said, aloud. Long, even by a divine measure.
But his intention was not to tip the scales. He wanted only Agamemnon’s capitulation, he wanted only the steady collapse of his men from within as disease stuck its scaled claws in and took hold. Their mutinous eyes would turn to the light that bore holes through them, and watch the swarm of arrows carrying every plague and pestilence known to their kind. And in their dwindling strength, their hearts would swell with bitterness that it was their own commander’s doing.
The bowstring sang like a lyre, and with the first arrow Apollo loosed a startled laugh, childlike, as if pleasantly surprised with his own power. “The arrow flies true - as does my title,” he mused, and his mouth wore cruelty with familiar ease. “Chryses rightly declared I am god of the silver bow. And a powerful god delivers justice with his own hand.” Moving to seize another bow from his quiver, Apollo noticed company had arrived, and inclined his head in brief welcome. “If you are come to watch the enactment of divine retribution, you are well-timed. Suffering, prolonged as this will be, seems a worse fate than death.”
This was not the first time Hemera had seen the slaughter of men upon the fields of the Earth.
Hermera could not recall the first instance they were witness to the brutality of humans, but certainly by this point, they had become unfazed by their massacres. What strange creatures they were—relying on Hemera’s golden chariot and warmth to thrive but waiting until the luminance of day to murder one another in cold blood. Hemera took the gesture as a sign of humans wishing to showcase their carnage to the primordial deity themselves, but they since came to reason that they were ignorant to their audience in the sky.
Despite not feeling an ounce of emotion when they watched fields turn red, the individuals who befell terrible fates always had Hemera’s empathy. Descending down to the Earth as the sky turned pink and their sister encompassed the sky, Hemera placed their chariot beside a babbling brook as golden horses drank from the abundance of water.
Fretful, Hemera inspected the bodies of soldiers that were strewn in the field adjacent to the stream. The emptiness in their eyes always frightened Hemera, who chose to look away as they continued to navigate through the corpses. They had not seen what had happened here in particular—had the fight just recently took place?
He loved summer, but not like this; Apollo would have enjoyed it more. His shirt stuck to his back uncomfortably in patches, and his feet were weighed down by the humidity. The town was sweat-slick and burning - it glimmered with the uncertainty of a battle that was still fresh, as if girding itself for further chaos to come. People held their breath as they passed toppled, crumbling buildings, the only victims that remained visible. Bobby held their gaze when they met his, searching for an explanation - for answers, for truth. You won’t find it here, he wanted to scream, He’s gone. And he’d left Bobby empty, exhausted.
Still he walked to the Memorial University Medical Center, because it was better than spending a Saturday alone in a house that had yet to feel like home - or worse (or better), in Bea’s company. He had first visited on Apollo’s suggestion, and perhaps it was testament to how well the god knew his nature - that first taste of delivering sickness and health, of exerting his control over the lives of anonymous faces, had consumed him with curiosity. Weekends at the hospitals around Savannah became a habit, even while the war broke out. The nurses might have suspected Bobby, a familiar face loitering in the waiting room for too long, with too little reason. But he had a kindly smile, a sweet word, and twinkling, knowing eyes that set them at ease (a hard thing to come by as a battle raged outside the hospital’s doors).
A jet of cold air rushed him as he entered, but it was a brief reprieve, for the hospital’s interior was equally stuffy. It was twisted, as things always were, that the hospital had become a sanctuary when it was where the casualties of the war struggled against their own wounds, against the onset of an eternal sleep - rage, rage against the dying of the light - almost always futile. Apollo could not heal wounds, but Bobby had felt them anyway, as if they rubbed against his skin, edges frayed and decaying.
Now he lacked even that - now he was numb, and the wards of the upper floors were closed off to his powers. A hospital full of people, of sickness-sound and sickness-smell, from the pained cries of the injured to the professional, low whispers of doctors - they amounted to nothing if Bobby could not feel along the scrubbed walls for the strains of disease that ought to poison the air, thick and heavy as the air outside, but not with summer’s heat. Nothing, nothing, and it hurt more than it should have, for Bobby had felt Apollo’s growing presence and shifted to accommodate it, and now there was a shadow where he had once lived.
He sank into a chair in the waiting room, watching a couple of nurses wheel a gurney past him, and down the hallway, rattling and squeaking as they went. Placing his hands in his lap, palms up, Bobby yearned for anything but this helplessness, this stasis. He glanced at the other person in the room. “You ever wish you had the power to fix anything?” He kept his voice cool, even a little wry, as he dropped his gaze to his hands once more. “A panacea, you know? Wish I had one of those. Do me a favour, would you?”
Bobby dusted his palms off and rose from his seat. “Can I, uh.” He shrugged carelessly, affecting a sheepish smile to mask his desperation, because it had been weeks since he had last felt skin against his palm, because Bea had not been available for this experiment for reasons of her (and his) own, because he had to know for certain if every last vestige of Apollo was gone. “Can I touch your forehead?”
Lorena loved not having to go into an office every single damned day. She loved being able to set her own schedule-- most of the time. She loved that her job required her to be outside all the time. Lorena loved her job. Her life... not so much. So far it had been messy and she had struggled, but not anymore. What Lorena loved most about her job were the horses. The fact that she could spend her time around the same creatures that had always made her feel happy, that had always given her hope. Chasing her dreams to Savannah just gave her hope, gave her the feeling that maybe things wouldn’t turn to shit again. Maybe she would be happy here.
The city was pretty fantastic in her opinion. There were lots of random places to go and things to see. There were even ghost tours-- not that she believed in ghosts. Half the time, Lorena acted like she had never seen the city before. Like she was a tourist. She was used to being the tourist. The dark haired woman walked through part of the town, staring at the Spanish moss on the trees. She passed by a local shop filled with knickknacks. Maybe there would be some horse themed items in there that she could bring back to Nina Dimmond, the little girl she was training.
All the little trinkets lined the walls, and she was intrigued by them. There was so much crammed in the small shop, Lorena was lost in her own thoughts as she walked through. After what seemed like an eternity, she finally found something worth giving Nina. The dark haired girl picked up the small crystal horse and smiled. Nina would love it, she was sure. Lorena took it to the man who owned the shop and purchased the small trinket. Putting it in her purse, she left the shop.
Turned around by which direction she’d even come from, she took a left, not paying attention to in front of her, instead the sidewalk below her feet. Lorena ran smack into something, before even realizing what she had done. She looked up at the pole she had just ran into, her butt planted firmly on the ground. What an idiot, she thought to herself, continuing to sit on the ground and nurse the ankle that had caught on something when she fell. She looked up to see if anyone had seen her fall.
It had been days now and the little voice inside his head had been silent -- and not a comfortable one at that. Without the reassurance of Ares, without divine protection and back up and guidance constantly whispered into his ear (even when he didn’t want it), Oliver had lost all traces of his infamous intimidation. His height, incredulous on it’s own, meant little at all if he didn’t have the flammable, corroded soul to match.
The confidence gifted to him by luck and Olympus had an obvious absence, Oliver could hardly tell if others knew this, too, or if he was only being paranoid. In a city like Savannah, with the whole town pointing fingers and still shaking from the recent departure of National Guard, no one was safe. Especially the Hunted, the Targets of the hatred. And while Oli himself had experienced very little of the peril of the public, he knew it was there. He could sense it (even without his godly powers, war was definitely in the air).
Reassurance and comfort was a rare, beautiful thing - and little of it seemed to be around, much too busy elsewhere with other people who had other problems. Oliver pretended to sympathize, to understand, but the truth was the incarnate couldn’t give a rat’s ass about other people, he shook like a junkie with nerves and his mind, while devoid of Ares was filled with trembling terrors of being alone, really alone in his mind, for the first time since he was sixteen. But comfort was found in familiar people, places, and practicalities.
And if that familiar face happened to be a reincarnate, too, well. That was a sign Oliver’s luck must be turning around.
Now of course, he didn’t know them very well, but Oli could identify their name on the Lynching List and really, that’s all that matters, right? Besides, it’s hard to automatically pick out his people in a crowd, walk up to them and ask about the Olympians mumbling in their head. But it was significantly easier to do so when the Olympian seemed dormant, quiet even with provocation and demands. With benevolent intents but poorly executed actions, he approached them.
Clara stood in front of their flower shop - well Gina’s but this place had been their home away from home. The flowers they had spent so long caring over, tending to, and growing were all but ashes at their feet. It was a sad site to see and frankly it still made Clara angry. But, the riots were over and the mortals have crawled back under their rocks. It was quiet now. Almost too quiet. Clara wanted to laugh that eighteen of them could make a whole town fall to their knees. It made them feel powerful.
( We are powerful. ) Persephone’s voice was faint in their head and Clara’s brow furrowed. Usually the Goddess was loud, almost abrasive in their head. As Clara bent down to pick up the shards of glass outside the shop doors, they heard someone’s foot crunch on the dead flowers that littered the sidewalk as well. “If you’re going to step on my dead flowers, the least you could do is help me pick them up,” they snapped at the unexpected guest as they stood up.
And of course the unhealthy adrenaline pumping through him, his veins as his body was dragged carelessly, his feet flopping about against the dirt. His face dripping with sweat as he felt the presence of the Sun, but the sack covering his head blocked the view. Bare his feet were, as his shoes were swiped from them a while back.
The people of Savannah knew they couldn’t do this out in broad daylight, or transport him with the loud humming of their trucks with a bag-headed incarnate in the bed of ‘em. They had caught him -- they had finally caught him. Having found his apartment after weeks of trying to spot him, they threw bottles through his windows, bricks, poles. Whatever their little hearts desired, and Haven well, he was smart enough to stay put, but not for long. He was not one to have to stay in, as if locked in a cage, play prisoner amongst the comfort of his own home. He couldn’t -- it didn't feel right, and maybe, just maybe, the conscious decision he made, he should have not. Taking deep breaths, Haven walked straight out of his apartment door, and down the front steps, as amicably as he could, emerged from shadows, and made himself known.
He swallowed, finding himself in the center of an enlarged crowd, everyone surrounding him staying at least twenty feet away. He saw women, little girls, little boys. His weaknesses, the one thing that always made him falter when he even considered fighting back. He took this time, a time of the people being shocked that he even dared made an appearance. While the people had a moment of fright, unaware of what he would do, of what he could do. They had only heard of his strengths, not seen them.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Haven projected, his voice coming out strong, clear and smooth, trying to feign confidence, to appear normal, harmless.
“I never wanted to hurt anyone of you. I haven't hurt any one of you, but this is not right. You can not continue to harass me, in fear that eventually, I will try to overrun you. Half of you don't even know my name, but the image of me, and what I apparently can do has left your mouth way too many times and you couldn’t even prove I existed until now, so think about it. What have I done? None of you has lost any of your own, not by the hands of me, not by the affects of anything I have done, so why am I such a target? You are all hypocrites, in the respect that you fight to protect anyone in this town that is innocent, yet, I’m the first on your lists when there are pedophiles, rapists, real murderers on the loose. Where has your humanity gone?” He sulked, trying his hardest to exude emotion, to touch the hearts of the people for them to see he was no threat. He made direct eye contact with many of them, a child in particular that shed tears for him, that looked at him as if she knew he didn't deserve it. He lifted a smile for the girl, holding out a hand to her ( to which she tried to reach back ) , to further prove his friendliness, but a man, who he could safely assume was the child’s father, slapped her hand back to her side, and Haven could feel the growl begin to rumble in his chest.
The once dead silent avenue began to roar, his spiel seemed to rile them up more, made them feel idiotic, insulted them. He heard the men in the crowd yell things to convince their fellow civilians that his words were merely a ploy to get them off his back, so that they all could become his targets with ease. The men riled them up to bring forth their violent natures, and bring him down because he was dangerous, and not even human. That they couldn’t live side by side with some f r e a k, with some thing sent from h e l l.
Haven shook his head, unsure of what his actions should be, his face showing emotions of weariness, his hands raised in defense, “I’m telling you, you don’t know what you are doing. It’s not just me, I’m not the only powerful one, you don’t know what you're up against,” he huffed, his inner self, Hephaestus, pushing him, pushing him to use flames against these people, to use his gift against people who couldn’t see he was a much better person than they’d assume, but he looked into the eyes of that same girl again, his hands rising against his will, unknowingly as he stood in a stupor, the townsmen quickly approaching him. Everything was a blur, he felt like he wasn't even in his own body anymore. Hephaestus seemed to be taking over, and before he could stop it, flames were derived from nearby electrical circuits, his hands balancing whirlwinds of fire in each, causing the townspeople to gasp.
“Get him!” he heard, and the fire was thrown against them, shearing away anything in its path, setting the nearest two people approaching him ablaze. Burning flesh was prevalent in the air, and it took the crowd, booming with screams, and the air thick with blistering fury came at him with even more subject intention. Fighting against Hephaestus with great strength, Haven yelled, “stop! Please, just stop!” but his words and his actions didn’t add up. The townspeople looked at him even more as a disgrace because of this.
“He’s a maniac too, take him down!”
He tried to run, rather get away from the people so he couldn’t hurt them, but with a muddled mind, and no sense of direction, he didn't get far and was tackled to the ground rather quickly by many, many men all at once. They forcefully angled his arms to the back, and bound his hands together with cuffs, and threw a sack over his head. “You can’t do this -- I didn't want to hurt you! I wasn't trying to hurt you-”
“Shut up!” a man spat at him, with a kick straight to his stomach. Haven grunted in pain, but his emotions began to close. He couldn’t feel anything anymore, nothing but an end.
And after that, here he is, men dragging him to the middle of a field, to a hanging willow tree, a rope attached to it while their wives and children watched. They kept him captive, and tortured him ( while he was blindfolded). They wanted answers from him. They wanted to know the exact identities of all who was like him. Of all who could cause them to perish as well, but he wouldn’t talk. Not even with a mouth full of blood, or a back full of welts, he wouldn’t utter a word in fear of the others getting hurt. He knew not many incarnates like himself, but he cared deeply for people. He didn't want anyone getting hurt.
After a while, they gave up on trying to get him to talk, and only beat on him more, with an intention of rendering him unconscious and they did. When he woke up, he found himself picked up, and being carried. By the absence of an immediate burn, and beam from the Sun, he concluded that nightfall was present. The sound of crickets told him he was far off from home, but he couldn’t decipher where exactly they were, or where they were going. He heard a vast amount of whispers, and mumblings though, and figured most of the town had been behind him, but he was too weak to kick, or yell, or defend himself. Maybe he deserved it, maybe this was for his mother and father, and little sister. They didn’t deserve to die at the hands of him, maybe he was a monster.
Shahnaz had been staring at page 163 of 1Q84 for the last forty minutes. The dark liquid in the cup beside her had been cold for hours; its surface trembled every few minutes as the sounds of screams and sirens buffetted the walls of the Savannah Public Library. Several ground floor windows down by the nonfiction had been shattered during last night’s riots. Someone had scrawled “JESUS HATES FREAKS” on the metal book return box. Relatively speaking, however, the library was in decent shape, likely because it had been closed days ago at the first signs of trouble.
Which didn’t stop Shahnaz, of course. Within a week of her arrival, she had “requested” a copy of the master key from one of the managing librarians. It had been simply a way to continue reading after the library’s pathetically early closing time without having to convince a different security guard every night. But now, it felt more like the bomb shelter key that had hung on her belt in Baghdad – cold, heavy, and inevitably ineffectual. Safety in a warzone was, after all, a dangerously seductive illusion.
The book hit the table with an echoing thud. Shahnaz covered her face with her hands, closing her eyes. The radio had announced last night that there would soon be boots on the ground in Savannah, something about the deployment of the National Guard. Sure enough, the moment the transports drove into the city limits, Athena, patron of soldiers, had felt it; the dark hair along Shahnaz’s neck was still raised, her fingers shaking with an energy that had nothing to do with the caffeine.
The goddess’ disgust with the whole affair was palpable like an ache in the back of Shahnaz’s throat. This isn’t war, the goddess whispered viciously. This is savagery.
It almost overwhelmed her vessel, and likely would have if Shahnaz’s fear and exhaustion hadn’t been equally as intense. This is what war looks like at home, the woman answered the goddess. Lynching for a turban or for the ability to move rocks, at the end of the day, it’s the same damn thing.
Athena’s reaction could only be described as a mental folding of the arms, a little huff of indignation that might have preceded a retort if the second floor window hadn’t shattered at that moment. A hail of glass and rubber bullets cascaded over Shahnaz, a few pieces embedding themselves in the back of her neck and arm nearest the window. Slow rivulets of blood began to snake down her shoulder. She heard shouts of an unruly crowd outside, felt fear that was not her own radiating from a group of guards caught in the fray.
Athena’s immediate reaction was to seize control; the goddess pushed against something in Shahnaz’s mind that, surprisingly, gave way with little resistance. The last thing Athena heard Shahnaz think was, Yeah, okay.
The goddess kept her head low, running crouched towards the staircase as more glass sprayed overhead. She burst into the dusty hot Savannah sunlight, spun on her heels and moved her arm instinctively to bring her shield up. It was, of course, empty, and Athena cursed the fates again for leaving her without the Gorgon’s head. Shield or not, however, this had to be done.
Three soldiers – two men, one woman – stood back to back, surrounded by a roiling, furious crowd. Several of the rabble held rusted shotguns, while the other brandished kitchen knives, lighted torches, even pitchforks.
“Get the hell out of our town!” one of the shotgun men shouted. “We know what we’re doing here!" The crowd roared its agreement. The man brandished his gun again. "We don’t wanna hurt y'all, but we gotta clean up this town and we don’t need no government involvement.”
“Disarm and disperse immediately,” the soldier with lieutenant stripes on his shoulder shouted, but his voice shook. The bullets in his gun were rubber; the bullets in the crowd were not. They reacted with more anger, pushing in towards the soldiers. The click of a cocked weapon resounded through the sunlight.
Athena cleared her throat softly, straightened her spine (she did like Shahnaz, but the woman’s meager 5'3" stature was occasionally frustrating), and spoke with a voice that would have stopped the wind itself from blowing if only she’d asked it.
“Put it down,” the goddess said.
The crowd froze. Silence.
“Now.”
And then the man’s shotgun clattered to the pavement. Athena took a few steps forward and the mass of people parted. She looked at the trembling soldiers with something like compassion. “Go,” the goddess said softly. They complied without a backward glance.
Athena spun to face the rapidly recovering crowd. In a split second, she counted them -- fifty two. Too many for her in this state. She whispered a forgetting charm to those near the front who had gotten the best look at her face, but knew that it would hardly be enough. Shahnaz's body winced, her wounds bleeding more profusely with the effort.
The goddess stood, hesitating. No, this wasn't real war, and she hated it.
