[ maybe bellamy hadn't been so far off when he'd been telling raven he wouldn't be able to recognise her without blood and dirt smeared on her face and her red jacket. he wears a dark blue shirt, the same colour as the one he'd worn on their ground, but without the blood and dirt to accessorise his look. with a tray with two cups of coffee from one of the coffee shops, tucked beneath his arm is a very brand new book on mythology he'd thought to duck into a shop and buy on his walk to raven's. ]
[ he doesn't think about texting her to tell her he's arrived. he doesn't even think to try her door and see if its open for him. even though he can spare a hand and ring the doorbell, he holds the tray with the two drinks in one hand and chooses to knock an odd rhythm against her door. ]
[She doesn't wash her face for him. She had just gotten off work before texting him about Loki's existence, the thought hitting her out of the blue in the shower; platonically, definitely a platonic shower thought given that all it was was oh I never bragged to Bellamy about that. So her face is clean and her hair is clean and still damp because Raven doesn't believe in hairdriers in this weather, and it's not because he's coming over.
Him coming over, that's not a weird either, she tells herself. It wouldn't be the first time he's taken up space on her couch. And she hasn't questioned it before, not once, because she likes the company -- his company, even. Mostly. Mostly his company. He's among the very few who have seen the inside of her apartment, the others being Hiccup and Annie Cresta that one night they couldn't sleep and ended up watching movies with the dog. And he's definitely the only one she's invited over with the line hold hands or whatever.
Not that she's in a rush, but if he were -- hugging Bellamy wouldn't be terrible.
If he could ring the fucking bell. She sighs and pushes away from her worktable, going to open the door. Clean face, clean clothes, clean hair - and hair definitely down, so it air dries even.]
Oh, good. [She grabs the coffee out of his hand and steps aside to let him pass inside. And before the awkwardness, launches,]
[ bellamy figures that at the end of the day here, they're always going to go their separate ways. as much as he wants to keep octavia close, he recognises she's not necessarily a kid anymore, even if she still technically is. she's had a year without him, the very same one he'd spent without her, and although he very much sees his little sister in her, she's grown older and harder. a part of him had tried to smother that when they'd first dropped on the earth. now, he just wants to see it blossom. ]
[ what bellamy knows he can't stand is his own apartment. it's so quiet and eery, unlike his tent where he'd been able to hear the kids outside, yelling and laughing and even whispering while on duty. camp life had always been loud with the cracks of twigs and the fire crackling somewhere nearby. but eudio is quiet. it's like mount weather, sometimes haunting, sometimes on the verge of being deceptively cosy. maybe he'll come to like his solitude, but, for now, bellamy's kind of grateful for an invitation to escape. it doesn't hurt at all that it's at raven's, either. spending time with her outside of the warzone is ... nice. ]
[ but he chooses not to ring the doorbell to only irritate her, if she even cares at all about him opting to knock instead. he notices her hair, wet and down. he's only ever really seen her hair down when she'd come to his tent, as if removing it from its ponytail would make him see less of the mechanic and more of the girl who hid behind her tinkering of radios and bombs. but she's never needed to do that; it's just different, how she looks, without her hair pulled up and away from her face. ]
[ as soon as she takes the coffees from him, he steps inside, grabbing the book from where it's tucked beneath his arm and holding it by his side. even though she'd given him a hint as to why she'd wanted him to come over, he still finds himself a little surprised (and a little grateful) at the abruptness. he may feel a little awkward, but it dissipates as quickly as it arises. his smile is small before he even answers her, ] Yeah. He's a big deal. He and his brothers overthrew his dad, and they claimed the bigger areas to rule over. He got the basement.
[See? Easy. Slip into the story and he forgets to ask why she asked, and she doesn't have to tell him she thought of him when she felt a little bit lonely. Easy. Arguably cowardly.
Whatever. She picks one cup of coffee that she deems will be hers, and even though it's near dusk, she drinks it anyway.]
Sounds like a great family that one. So what, is he all alone in the basement with his three-headed dog?
[ bellamy smiles, shaking his head. unbeknownst to him, he falls almost too eagerly into her trap. he had thought to ask her of why she'd even wanted to know, but had thought maybe it had been curiosity getting the better of her about the stories he'd told her on his very first night here. ]
[ the story of hades and persephone is one that he likes, given that hades seems to be the only god who understands what commitment truly entails. he doesn't think to tell raven that as it may just tangle everything up for her if he goes on and on and on about zeus and poseidon. ] He had a wife. Persephone.
[ unlike her, he doesn't drink his coffee. instead, he moves toward a table to place it on the surface along with the book. he leans against the edge of it, folding his arms against his chest, as he faces her. ] She lived with him for half the year. [ his brows crinkle as he tries to remember. ] That was usually during winter, when the land was dead. [ and after speaking to elsa of hades and persehone and demeter accompanied by the season of winter, he thinks to tack on: ] Her mother was the harvest goddess, and she mourned for her daughter whenever she was in the Underworld with Hades.
[A wife. Raven doesn't know the weight of that word, not more than she knows the weight of it in the context of Greek mythology. But for whatever's worth, and for whatever she has heard and maybe even read a little about Hades, it's probably okay that he had someone other than the dog there with him. Loneliness and death make bad bedfellows.]
So what? [Dots being connected fast.] She makes the harvest wither away because she can't handle her daughter being away? Lady gets six months, that's -- weren't married couples supposed to live together?
[ he bows his head, amused. ] It's not that simple. [ nothing ever is — he supposes raven might come to see that with the greek gods if she's to find herself too curious to simply leave it at that. bellamy grips the edges of the table he leans against as he tries to figure out the best way to tackle a rather convoluted love story. ]
[ he looks up at her. ] Each story differs. But the one that's pretty prevalent with them is that Hades kidnapped Persephone. She was in the fields one day and Hades, on one of his rare trips upstairs, saw her and fell for her. Love at first sight. [ he shrugs at that. he doesn't really believe in it, but he's seen some people fall head over heels for a pretty face. finn had been that very person, but bellamy doesn't really give much of a shit about the love affairs of the original hundred. ]
The earth opened up and swallowed them whole. Demeter, Persephone's mother, was rightfully pissed. She threatened to make the earth barren forever if she didn't find her daughter. Which is serious, since if there's nothing growing on the earth, humankind's screwed.
She went searching for her everywhere and asked a goddess where her daughter was. [ and maybe it's easier to keep that goddess out of the equation for now, since hecate doesn't really matter in this. keeping it simple for raven is simultaneously difficult and simple. he does what his mother never did — leave a few names out so she can't get too caught up with the tangents. ] The two of them went to Helius, the sun god. He sees everything on Earth, so, he was able to tell them Hades took her. But he approved of Hades as a husband for Persephone. Unsurprisingly, Demeter wouldn't listen.
There's no real way to get to the Underworld unless you're dead or Hermes, the god of travellers. So, Demeter was kind of screwed. She decided to be pissed at the earth and brought on a famine that lasted a year. So, Zeus, the god in the sky and Hades' brother, decided to send Hermes down to the Underworld to get Persephone back, because everyone would be dead if this continued. He went down there and Hades said okay. [ bellamy shrugs his shoulders. aurora had told him he'd shrugged his shoulders, caring really little by such a proposal. he finds himself imitating it, even if raven doesn't know why. ] Just like that. He'd let her go. Persephone hadn't eaten anything while she was in the Underworld, and so he asked her, before she'd go, if she wanted to eat something. She was really hungry, so you'd think the guy was just giving a shit.
Except if you eat the food of Hades, you've got to stay in the Underworld forever. And Persephone ate a pomegranate seed.
But Rhea — she was a Titan and the mother of Zeus, Demeter, and Hades — decided to put her foot down and proposed that Persephone stay in the Underworld for part of every year. She ate the food. [ bellamy shakes his head. ] You can't really break that rule.
Some of the stories have Persephone willingly eating some food in the Underworld, but I like the one where she's stubborn and wants to stick it to Hades for kidnapping her in the first place. Persephone's kind of cool. [ that's a tangent, though. ] But Demeter was happy in the end, and that's all that mattered. Whenever Persephone came back to the earth, it would be fertile and beautiful. When Persephone had to go back to the Underworld, it'd be cold and barren. They might be husband and wife, but that's why they had to live the way they did. To keep everyone happy and the world living. [ his smile becomes wide. ] And to give everyone a break in the Underworld from Persephone. She was a badass.
[Love at first sight isn't a concept Raven likes hearing about. Never was. When she fell for Finn it had happened slowly, over the years, and then all at once and with this idea of forever in her mind because it had felt right. Love at first sight is the sort of stupidity that ends years of solid relationship in ten days, the sort that leaves one person thinking what she didn't have that the other one did, and why --
Fuck love at first sight, basically.
She sits down on the small two-seat couch with her coffee and just lets him go on with the story. Those are a lot of names, but she can handle rocket science; what are a few names anyway? She wonders if it mattered what Persephone thought of the whole marriage, or if it was just one of those things Hades decided he was entitled to as a big guy. Or if it mattered at all that Persephone had to switch homes every six months to keep Hades happy and her mom happy. Or if it mattered at all what she wanted, when every fucking god in the universe was giving her orders.]
She doesn't sound like it. [She shrugs,] Demeter wants Persephone back so Persephone goes back. Helios approves of the marriage, not that Persephone asked for his opinion. Rhea gave Persephone orders, not that it matter. And dickhead Hades keeps her starved on his domain for a whole year and then tricks her into having to stay by offering her food that keeps her there? Fuck the harvest, did anyone ask Persephone what she wanted, in these stories?
[ is bellamy surprised raven nitpicks at all of that? he isn't. unfortunately, the greek myths don't give him all the answers, but maybe he can satisfy her own irritation at the treatment of a goddess by telling her what he knows — and the versions he favours. he listens and looks at her all too amused, with practiced patience, like maybe o had gone on similar rants and questioning back on the ark. ]
Not much is known about Persephone before her abduction. [ he shrugs his shoulders, a little helpless. ] A lot of these gods and goddesses get treated like shit, Raven. But Persephone actually gets a pretty good deal out of it. She's not some helpless goddess who got tricked by a god. She was the one everyone who went to the Underworld dreaded pissing off. Odysseus was this great king and hero, and he was afraid of her, not Hades.
There's a version of the story — the one that I like — that describes Persephone going hungry out of stubbornness or spite. Here's Hades, the god of the Underworld, he is the king of death, Raven. There's absolutely no one more powerful than him when it comes to death. And this vegetation goddess, who was known as [ he does do the airquotes. ] "the maiden" and nothing more, refuses to eat.
I guess they grew to love one another because Persephone actually looked forward to being with Hades. That's what some of the stories say. [ he shrugs. ] Persephone was treated like shit, but she was more feared than her husband.
[A few times she notices that he uses her name to draw her attention to the really nerdy stuff, but it's a little cute how he gets excited about telling the story. He's a good story teller at least, she'll give him that. And this version of the story, the one he adds on, maybe it's for her benefit but she likes it a bit better.
People fearing the wife of the god of death, but not the god himself. (What a loser.)]
It would be nice to imagine they did grow to love each other equally, yeah. [It wouldn't be that strange. Affection surges, it doesn't appear out of nowhere, it builds. Look at the two of them, they were at each other's throats like rabid beasts at first and now she's ...pretty certain he now is the person to know all her secrets here. Starting with the Spacewalker story.
Not that she's comparing. She's not comparing.] It makes sense, though. That she'd be the feared one. If I had to spend six months in lightless gloom, just because some extrovert decided he fell in love with me, I'd bite heads off too.
[ the story of hades and persephone had been among one of his favourites, from heracles to even theseus and ariadne, but it takes all his own self-control to not go on and on about it. he'd spent years thinking about it, hearing different versions, talking to his mom about how hades couldn't have been like zeus, wanting a wife who was only pretty. it's tempting to tell raven what he thinks. it's tempting to become that person he'd been, even as a kid, before o had been born and even after. but he stops himself. ]
[ he finds himself caught thinking that maybe he'd told raven the story about cerberus and heracles because persephone had reminded him of her. he'd given clarke the elephant toy as the animal had reminded him of her, just as bastet had been a name he'd given raven's cat when he could've named her whiskers instead. he finds himself thinking too much of his own motivations, something the ground back in their home had stripped of him. ]
[ he makes it a point to act as the ground now, pushing himself from where he stands to flop down on the couch beside her. he shifts until he's sitting comfortably against the cushions, feet planted firmly against her floor. he's left his coffee on the table, thinking nothing of it. he begins to toe his shoes off, an absent thought as bellamy looks to the wall in front of him. ]
Hera's Zeus' wife. He cheats on her all the time. Hades did it once or twice. Minthe either seduced him or was trying to and Persephone decided to have her trampled or turned into one of those mint leaves they sell at the store here. [ he looks at her, cheek pressed against the cushion of the couch. he's too comfortable, too relaxed, very unlike the leader in camp who can never let his hackles remain soothed for a minute. ] He never let his eye wander again. She's fiercer than any of the snakes on Medusa's head.
Okay, those are a lot of new names. [She won't make a quip about cheating spouses and dickheads who think it'll always end with forgiveness, because she doesn't need to. She forgave Finn for that, after all. But she has never forgotten that only a couple of days after being sent to Earth, Raven stopped being enough for Finn. Oh she did not forget that, no.
More unusual than the two of them talking about cheating gods is the comfortable way in which he takes up space. It doesn't bother her, since she invited him over in the first place, but there's a small feeling of pride at it. She's proud to be someone around whom he feels this comfortable. She reasons with herself that she'd be equally proud and glad if it were coming from Octavia, or Monty or anyone else.]
Who's Medusa and why does she wear snakes on her head?
[ bellamy successfully toes off his shoes, head bowed slightly as though he can see through the couch and even his legs to observe his own efforts. he can't, but he learns by feel and his own toes wriggling in his socks that he's free from his shoes. it's then he turns his head to look at her, possibly unaware of how he takes to her as tough he's back on the ark with mom and o. or maybe he does, simply not wanting to acknowledge it and turn a comfortable atmosphere slightly awkward. ]
[ he grins, laughing slightly, ] Ah. [ if she hadn't reacted the way she had to persephone, he wouldn't hesitate in overwhelming her with even more names. but he's not surprised she'd questioned persephone's own autonomy in the story. he has a feeling that the fate that happens to befall medusa will see her seething at a story that's merely that. he looks up at the ceiling instead of at her, still grinning, ] I don't think you'd like that story.
Don't bite my head off because it pisses you off. [ there really is no point in fighting her, is there? he suspects she'll pester him to tell her the story or kick him out of her place. and bellamy's too comfortable to budge. the story of medusa isn't one he happens to like. he taps his fingers against his leg before he even thinks to go on. ]
Medusa was one of the Gorgon sisters. She was really beautiful, and I guess that's why Poseidon, the god of the sea, really liked her. Athena's a virgin goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, war strategy — she was really smart. [ and so that's the names raven needs to know, given that the ones he'd dropped only moments ago had probably overwhelmed her. keeping these stories simple is fun, but he also finds himself tempted not to. ]
Medusa was her priestess and had taken a vow of celibacy, so, that's kind of important to a goddess who literally doesn't fuck around. Poseidon came along and wooed her, making her forget her vows, and so ... One of the stories is that Medusa and Poseidon married. The other is ... [ bellamy looks down at his lap, wondering how to word it. ] Posiedon forced himself on her in Athena's temple.
This enraged Athena. Not only had her priestess broken her vows, but she'd tarnished the temple with Poseidon. As punishment, Athena turned Medusa's hair into serpents and altered her face so she'd be horrifying to look at. [ he turns to face her then. if she was o, he'd try and scare her into closing her eyes, fearful she'd turn to stone if she so much as gazed into his. ] Looking at her would turn that person into stone.
[He was right, she hates the story. Hates it, the more it advances. Whoever Poseidon is, he better hope never to come to Eudio. Although what feels like the slap in the face, from the story, is what Athena does; Athena, whom Raven had liked the sound of.
[ bellamy can't help but laugh at her reaction. he thinks if o had been older and had been told the more explicit versions as a kid, she may have made mom and him feel guilty for not trying to change up the story for her. maybe he should've done that with raven, but she's already well-aware of how cruel the world can be. ] I told you you wouldn't like it.
[ he shrugs his shoulders. ] The Greeks are really fucked up. Half the stories are. [ he knows he doesn't need to defend them per se, but maybe if raven wants to hear more, she needs to be well-aware of that. ] I'm sure there's a diffferent version floating around, but I doubt it's a good one for Medusa either way.
[He should be well aware of the fact that Raven would most assuredly shove him over a cliff if he tried to sugarcoat stuff for her benefit. She knows how cruel the world can be, yes; she knew how cruel the Ark's governance could be, how vile the Guard, how dysfunctional the black market dealers. (A woman's body never stops being currency, apparently, not even in myths.)
She laughs a bitter little laugh,] You guessed right - I guess that does it for me. [She shrugs, like the sentence has been dictated.] I don't like this Athena bitch anymore. [And that's that. Raven Reyes, taking the side of the disgruntled women of all his stories.]
[ if he's going to tell her a story about athena, it's going to take place on another day if she ever wants to know why she'd been bitter. he isn't sure if he has those stories, but bellamy has always liked knowing how someone got to such a place to want to turn a woman who had followed love instead of obedience into a monster destined to die. it's the easiest way to work out the motivations of those around him, if he's to learn how it all began. ]
[ he relaxes against the couch for a moment, content to not try and oull anymore stories from his memory. she had wanted him to come over to talk about the hellhound and had gotten way more than she bargained for story-wise, he guesses. he sighs before he toes his shoe and looks at her. ] You like Cerberus still, right?
[There's not a lot of space on the tiny couch for both of them to sprawl, and she doesn't mind that he is getting comfortable; truth be told, she's comfy enough taking up the mini spot she's sitting in, at the corner of the couch against the armrest.
And - she can't help but think - he looks funny like this. Relaxed. Like it's a good thing that he can relax, but it's also out of character for him.]
[ bellamy can't help but laugh, ] I'm not. Promise. [ he'd pinky swear it, but he doesn't trust the myths himself. he doubts cerberus is a bad dog. he eventually returned to hades of his own accord, and most mutts wouldn't think to do that. ]
[ murphy had, but sometimes bellamy doesn't think of him as a mutt. ]
[ he doesn't think twice about how he is now, all relaxed and almost carefree. he'd once been lazy on the ark, willing to toe off his shoes, flop on his bed, do absolutely nothing for an hour or two. the ground hadn't given him that luxury, even if he had tried to indulge himself before everything went to shit and someone decided to fall from the sky and ruin his relaxing stay on earth. ]
I just wanted to know for Cerberus' sake. The dog with the one head. He's great.
[Idleness is a state she still has trouble getting used to. Though she's not pissed off at anyone (Finn) right now, she still has projects in working process, sitting on the very cluttered table. The only table in the apartment, other than the small one in the kitchen meant for eating. Laziness isn't in their veins, it can't afford to be, and de-stressing takes time. Weeks, months of times.
She does it by picking up new skills - dancing, drums, archery - and he apparently like to take his shoes off. Bless, his feet don't stink; she can only imagine they do, back home. She can only imagine him relaxed back home, because it won't happen.
There's a tiny little smile at the corners of her lips that's starting to be a permanent fixture.]
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text; 30th
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i'm going to stop replying since you can't multitask texting and walking apparently
bring coffee
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[ don't even bother answering that. ]
Fine. My hands are going to be full. Don't clean your face while waiting for me.
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[ he doesn't think about texting her to tell her he's arrived. he doesn't even think to try her door and see if its open for him. even though he can spare a hand and ring the doorbell, he holds the tray with the two drinks in one hand and chooses to knock an odd rhythm against her door. ]
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Him coming over, that's not a weird either, she tells herself. It wouldn't be the first time he's taken up space on her couch. And she hasn't questioned it before, not once, because she likes the company -- his company, even. Mostly. Mostly his company. He's among the very few who have seen the inside of her apartment, the others being Hiccup and Annie Cresta that one night they couldn't sleep and ended up watching movies with the dog. And he's definitely the only one she's invited over with the line hold hands or whatever.
Not that she's in a rush, but if he were -- hugging Bellamy wouldn't be terrible.
If he could ring the fucking bell. She sighs and pushes away from her worktable, going to open the door. Clean face, clean clothes, clean hair - and hair definitely down, so it air dries even.]
Oh, good. [She grabs the coffee out of his hand and steps aside to let him pass inside. And before the awkwardness, launches,]
So Hades is the god of the dead, right?
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[ what bellamy knows he can't stand is his own apartment. it's so quiet and eery, unlike his tent where he'd been able to hear the kids outside, yelling and laughing and even whispering while on duty. camp life had always been loud with the cracks of twigs and the fire crackling somewhere nearby. but eudio is quiet. it's like mount weather, sometimes haunting, sometimes on the verge of being deceptively cosy. maybe he'll come to like his solitude, but, for now, bellamy's kind of grateful for an invitation to escape. it doesn't hurt at all that it's at raven's, either. spending time with her outside of the warzone is ... nice. ]
[ but he chooses not to ring the doorbell to only irritate her, if she even cares at all about him opting to knock instead. he notices her hair, wet and down. he's only ever really seen her hair down when she'd come to his tent, as if removing it from its ponytail would make him see less of the mechanic and more of the girl who hid behind her tinkering of radios and bombs. but she's never needed to do that; it's just different, how she looks, without her hair pulled up and away from her face. ]
[ as soon as she takes the coffees from him, he steps inside, grabbing the book from where it's tucked beneath his arm and holding it by his side. even though she'd given him a hint as to why she'd wanted him to come over, he still finds himself a little surprised (and a little grateful) at the abruptness. he may feel a little awkward, but it dissipates as quickly as it arises. his smile is small before he even answers her, ] Yeah. He's a big deal. He and his brothers overthrew his dad, and they claimed the bigger areas to rule over. He got the basement.
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Whatever. She picks one cup of coffee that she deems will be hers, and even though it's near dusk, she drinks it anyway.]
Sounds like a great family that one. So what, is he all alone in the basement with his three-headed dog?
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[ the story of hades and persephone is one that he likes, given that hades seems to be the only god who understands what commitment truly entails. he doesn't think to tell raven that as it may just tangle everything up for her if he goes on and on and on about zeus and poseidon. ] He had a wife. Persephone.
[ unlike her, he doesn't drink his coffee. instead, he moves toward a table to place it on the surface along with the book. he leans against the edge of it, folding his arms against his chest, as he faces her. ] She lived with him for half the year. [ his brows crinkle as he tries to remember. ] That was usually during winter, when the land was dead. [ and after speaking to elsa of hades and persehone and demeter accompanied by the season of winter, he thinks to tack on: ] Her mother was the harvest goddess, and she mourned for her daughter whenever she was in the Underworld with Hades.
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So what? [Dots being connected fast.] She makes the harvest wither away because she can't handle her daughter being away? Lady gets six months, that's -- weren't married couples supposed to live together?
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[ he looks up at her. ] Each story differs. But the one that's pretty prevalent with them is that Hades kidnapped Persephone. She was in the fields one day and Hades, on one of his rare trips upstairs, saw her and fell for her. Love at first sight. [ he shrugs at that. he doesn't really believe in it, but he's seen some people fall head over heels for a pretty face. finn had been that very person, but bellamy doesn't really give much of a shit about the love affairs of the original hundred. ]
The earth opened up and swallowed them whole. Demeter, Persephone's mother, was rightfully pissed. She threatened to make the earth barren forever if she didn't find her daughter. Which is serious, since if there's nothing growing on the earth, humankind's screwed.
She went searching for her everywhere and asked a goddess where her daughter was. [ and maybe it's easier to keep that goddess out of the equation for now, since hecate doesn't really matter in this. keeping it simple for raven is simultaneously difficult and simple. he does what his mother never did — leave a few names out so she can't get too caught up with the tangents. ] The two of them went to Helius, the sun god. He sees everything on Earth, so, he was able to tell them Hades took her. But he approved of Hades as a husband for Persephone. Unsurprisingly, Demeter wouldn't listen.
There's no real way to get to the Underworld unless you're dead or Hermes, the god of travellers. So, Demeter was kind of screwed. She decided to be pissed at the earth and brought on a famine that lasted a year. So, Zeus, the god in the sky and Hades' brother, decided to send Hermes down to the Underworld to get Persephone back, because everyone would be dead if this continued. He went down there and Hades said okay. [ bellamy shrugs his shoulders. aurora had told him he'd shrugged his shoulders, caring really little by such a proposal. he finds himself imitating it, even if raven doesn't know why. ] Just like that. He'd let her go. Persephone hadn't eaten anything while she was in the Underworld, and so he asked her, before she'd go, if she wanted to eat something. She was really hungry, so you'd think the guy was just giving a shit.
Except if you eat the food of Hades, you've got to stay in the Underworld forever. And Persephone ate a pomegranate seed.
But Rhea — she was a Titan and the mother of Zeus, Demeter, and Hades — decided to put her foot down and proposed that Persephone stay in the Underworld for part of every year. She ate the food. [ bellamy shakes his head. ] You can't really break that rule.
Some of the stories have Persephone willingly eating some food in the Underworld, but I like the one where she's stubborn and wants to stick it to Hades for kidnapping her in the first place. Persephone's kind of cool. [ that's a tangent, though. ] But Demeter was happy in the end, and that's all that mattered. Whenever Persephone came back to the earth, it would be fertile and beautiful. When Persephone had to go back to the Underworld, it'd be cold and barren. They might be husband and wife, but that's why they had to live the way they did. To keep everyone happy and the world living. [ his smile becomes wide. ] And to give everyone a break in the Underworld from Persephone. She was a badass.
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Fuck love at first sight, basically.
She sits down on the small two-seat couch with her coffee and just lets him go on with the story. Those are a lot of names, but she can handle rocket science; what are a few names anyway? She wonders if it mattered what Persephone thought of the whole marriage, or if it was just one of those things Hades decided he was entitled to as a big guy. Or if it mattered at all that Persephone had to switch homes every six months to keep Hades happy and her mom happy. Or if it mattered at all what she wanted, when every fucking god in the universe was giving her orders.]
She doesn't sound like it. [She shrugs,] Demeter wants Persephone back so Persephone goes back. Helios approves of the marriage, not that Persephone asked for his opinion. Rhea gave Persephone orders, not that it matter. And dickhead Hades keeps her starved on his domain for a whole year and then tricks her into having to stay by offering her food that keeps her there? Fuck the harvest, did anyone ask Persephone what she wanted, in these stories?
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Not much is known about Persephone before her abduction. [ he shrugs his shoulders, a little helpless. ] A lot of these gods and goddesses get treated like shit, Raven. But Persephone actually gets a pretty good deal out of it. She's not some helpless goddess who got tricked by a god. She was the one everyone who went to the Underworld dreaded pissing off. Odysseus was this great king and hero, and he was afraid of her, not Hades.
There's a version of the story — the one that I like — that describes Persephone going hungry out of stubbornness or spite. Here's Hades, the god of the Underworld, he is the king of death, Raven. There's absolutely no one more powerful than him when it comes to death. And this vegetation goddess, who was known as [ he does do the airquotes. ] "the maiden" and nothing more, refuses to eat.
I guess they grew to love one another because Persephone actually looked forward to being with Hades. That's what some of the stories say. [ he shrugs. ] Persephone was treated like shit, but she was more feared than her husband.
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People fearing the wife of the god of death, but not the god himself. (What a loser.)]
It would be nice to imagine they did grow to love each other equally, yeah. [It wouldn't be that strange. Affection surges, it doesn't appear out of nowhere, it builds. Look at the two of them, they were at each other's throats like rabid beasts at first and now she's ...pretty certain he now is the person to know all her secrets here. Starting with the Spacewalker story.
Not that she's comparing. She's not comparing.] It makes sense, though. That she'd be the feared one. If I had to spend six months in lightless gloom, just because some extrovert decided he fell in love with me, I'd bite heads off too.
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[ he finds himself caught thinking that maybe he'd told raven the story about cerberus and heracles because persephone had reminded him of her. he'd given clarke the elephant toy as the animal had reminded him of her, just as bastet had been a name he'd given raven's cat when he could've named her whiskers instead. he finds himself thinking too much of his own motivations, something the ground back in their home had stripped of him. ]
[ he makes it a point to act as the ground now, pushing himself from where he stands to flop down on the couch beside her. he shifts until he's sitting comfortably against the cushions, feet planted firmly against her floor. he's left his coffee on the table, thinking nothing of it. he begins to toe his shoes off, an absent thought as bellamy looks to the wall in front of him. ]
Hera's Zeus' wife. He cheats on her all the time. Hades did it once or twice. Minthe either seduced him or was trying to and Persephone decided to have her trampled or turned into one of those mint leaves they sell at the store here. [ he looks at her, cheek pressed against the cushion of the couch. he's too comfortable, too relaxed, very unlike the leader in camp who can never let his hackles remain soothed for a minute. ] He never let his eye wander again. She's fiercer than any of the snakes on Medusa's head.
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More unusual than the two of them talking about cheating gods is the comfortable way in which he takes up space. It doesn't bother her, since she invited him over in the first place, but there's a small feeling of pride at it. She's proud to be someone around whom he feels this comfortable. She reasons with herself that she'd be equally proud and glad if it were coming from Octavia, or Monty or anyone else.]
Who's Medusa and why does she wear snakes on her head?
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[ he grins, laughing slightly, ] Ah. [ if she hadn't reacted the way she had to persephone, he wouldn't hesitate in overwhelming her with even more names. but he's not surprised she'd questioned persephone's own autonomy in the story. he has a feeling that the fate that happens to befall medusa will see her seething at a story that's merely that. he looks up at the ceiling instead of at her, still grinning, ] I don't think you'd like that story.
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Come on, now you have to tell me.
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Medusa was one of the Gorgon sisters. She was really beautiful, and I guess that's why Poseidon, the god of the sea, really liked her. Athena's a virgin goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, war strategy — she was really smart. [ and so that's the names raven needs to know, given that the ones he'd dropped only moments ago had probably overwhelmed her. keeping these stories simple is fun, but he also finds himself tempted not to. ]
Medusa was her priestess and had taken a vow of celibacy, so, that's kind of important to a goddess who literally doesn't fuck around. Poseidon came along and wooed her, making her forget her vows, and so ... One of the stories is that Medusa and Poseidon married. The other is ... [ bellamy looks down at his lap, wondering how to word it. ] Posiedon forced himself on her in Athena's temple.
This enraged Athena. Not only had her priestess broken her vows, but she'd tarnished the temple with Poseidon. As punishment, Athena turned Medusa's hair into serpents and altered her face so she'd be horrifying to look at. [ he turns to face her then. if she was o, he'd try and scare her into closing her eyes, fearful she'd turn to stone if she so much as gazed into his. ] Looking at her would turn that person into stone.
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She practically hisses,] What the fuck?
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[ he shrugs his shoulders. ] The Greeks are really fucked up. Half the stories are. [ he knows he doesn't need to defend them per se, but maybe if raven wants to hear more, she needs to be well-aware of that. ] I'm sure there's a diffferent version floating around, but I doubt it's a good one for Medusa either way.
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She laughs a bitter little laugh,] You guessed right - I guess that does it for me. [She shrugs, like the sentence has been dictated.] I don't like this Athena bitch anymore. [And that's that. Raven Reyes, taking the side of the disgruntled women of all his stories.]
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[ he relaxes against the couch for a moment, content to not try and oull anymore stories from his memory. she had wanted him to come over to talk about the hellhound and had gotten way more than she bargained for story-wise, he guesses. he sighs before he toes his shoe and looks at her. ] You like Cerberus still, right?
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And - she can't help but think - he looks funny like this. Relaxed. Like it's a good thing that he can relax, but it's also out of character for him.]
Yeah, please don't ruin that.
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[ murphy had, but sometimes bellamy doesn't think of him as a mutt. ]
[ he doesn't think twice about how he is now, all relaxed and almost carefree. he'd once been lazy on the ark, willing to toe off his shoes, flop on his bed, do absolutely nothing for an hour or two. the ground hadn't given him that luxury, even if he had tried to indulge himself before everything went to shit and someone decided to fall from the sky and ruin his relaxing stay on earth. ]
I just wanted to know for Cerberus' sake. The dog with the one head. He's great.
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She does it by picking up new skills - dancing, drums, archery - and he apparently like to take his shoes off. Bless, his feet don't stink; she can only imagine they do, back home. She can only imagine him relaxed back home, because it won't happen.
There's a tiny little smile at the corners of her lips that's starting to be a permanent fixture.]
Do you cuddle him to sleep?
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