Mousai's POV
"How long has it been since I've seen you this way my little hound" I feel my body give into old ways as I cup his middle head. His once feared form, now reimagined as we lay next to each other in the world meant just for us.
"Why are you talking like that? We've been together for as long as I can remember" All three of them smile while nudging into me. He's no god but he's mine to love...to protect. Zagreus.
"Would you rather me be bigger?" One of the heads tease as he alters his size a bit, to show off his original height. The personality of Zion.
"And have our weight crush her? Idiot" The oh so stern Zahere forces himself to shrink once more to the point where he's eye to eye with myself.
"Shhh" I plant a kiss on each of their heads, just simply wanting to bask in this distant memory. Forever and always...leave me here, repeat this moment and this moment only.
That voice from before clears his throat, reminding me of the pain in my heart, "But Mousai...there's more to this memory, isn't there?"
"Please." I beg...but it's already too late.
The space around us begins to crack and rumble as the large painted canvas tears, an object that acts as our means to travel into this space, breached by none other than Tyr and the Moon goddess herself.
With seraph like wings that run down from her full moon halo, her sealed eyes twitch a little as she removes the hooded cloak from her face. "Surely you detest this beast, through and through as his origins are tarnished and tainted. For here we have a much more suited mate for our shared blood." She gestures towards Tyr.
His hulking stature oozing confidence even despite his missing hand from facing Fenrir himself...albeit a pup at the time.
"Come sister, mate with him and produce an offspring worthy of our divine blood, our heritage that runs closest to the Mother herself only deserves the best life, does it not? Surely impurities such as that wouldn't work." She covers her smirk with her oversized gown, but I can hear it from the depths of her stomach...she'd much rather kill me.
Cerberus stomps while attempting to stand up, his growling turning into bellows as he reaches his original towering size that Skoll and Hati are incomparable to.
"Another beast yet dares growl at me?" Tyr's ego is damaged.
Heat from Cerberus' green flaming collar radiates and churns the very air as he swipes for Tyr.
The man who carved one of Fenrir's fallen teeth into a sword...tossing the gargantuan blade into the air in a motion oh so painfully slow to me.
"Mousai~" The Moon goddess sings with glee as she comes closer to me.
I cover my eyes as I know what comes next, I've seen what comes next, I was there...I heard the howls, the blood splatters...the large thud of three heads falling beside me one by one by one.
"Mousai~, why won't you watch? Gaze upon what happens when you deny your future." She tries to pry my hands away from my face. "Gaze upon what happens when you deny me." She kisses my forehead as an earthquake strikes the ground from Tyr's very landing.
A howl of pain vibrates the air just as easily as I hear a blade ringing throughout a toss, something he was very much known for. Anything to show he's above others.
'I hate you'
'I hate you'
'I hate you' I chant over and over, unsure whether or not I'm even saying them out loud at this point.
"I hate you"
"I hate you"
"I hate you"
"Hmmm~What are you saying? I can't hear you over those two animals." She hums gently. "Show me your eyes before I have to pluck them out myself~"
One by one I hear them fall, the being whom I had poured my time...energy...pain and heartache into. Being torn apart piece by piece by someone who's underserving of his existence.
But all of a sudden it all rings to silence.
A deep seething stare causes me to split my fingers in two in order to peer in front of me, the entire space remaining frozen as time's halted. All except Cerberus' body as twitches and scratches echo from within one of the holes left over by the heads, spurting and drooling with blood until something grey comes through. His figure twisted and bent as if never truly birthed properly, as if he was defected by design.
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His lips move but no voice is heard, at least not immediately. "And what did you do?" He asks me, this thing who shares the voice of the one from the Underworld.
I look back down, covering my eyes once again as I attempt to calm myself.
"What did you do?" He asks again.
A resounding 𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘥 shakes my entire soul from within.
"What did you do?" He asks again
𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘥, 𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘥.
"What did you do?" He asks again, with each question I hear him inch oh so closer.
𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘥, 𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘥, 𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘥.
"What did you do?" His breath so close I can feel it.
𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘥, 𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘥, 𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘥, 𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘥.
"WHAT DID YOU DO!?" His distorted screech splatters blood from his mouth and onto my hands.
𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘥.
My teeth reveal themselves as my smile bursts from my lips, "I killed Tyr."
And with that time resumed, down came Tyr's sword as it falls aimlessly just beside the Moon goddess. "Be careful where yo-" She drops my hand as she reacts to something landing upon her gown.
"Tyr!?" She yells briefly, stepping back from me.
"....hmmm" I couldn't help but snicker ever so slightly.
Blood pours from above us, coating like a warm morning shower and dirtying her perfect white clothing, "Above your head...it's lik-"
"HAHAHAHA!" The laughter precedes me. "HAHAHAHA LIKE YOURS?" I couldn't contain it, I refused to contain it anymore. That side of me that just can't fucking help but get off at the thought of it all. "HMMMM NOBODY ELSE IS HERE RIGHT!? WELL I'M FUCKING TIRED, I'M FUCKING TIRED OF NOT SHOWING ME!" I laugh hysterically as the goddess in front of me scrunches her eyebrows in horror at the thing growing above my head. "HE WAS JUST THERE THEN LIKE...POP! HAHAHA!" I kneel down, ripping my clothes open to lather it over my skin.
I know it's there, it's always been there but nobody can quite seem to see it until they squint. Not Oracion, not any other god...not even her.
"LOOK AT US, TWO DAUGHTERS WITH THE BLOOD OF THIS FORETOLD MOTHER! DID YOU REALLY THINK YOU WERE THE ONLY ON-"
A golden wave cuts the very colour of the world, splitting top to bottom as a monochrome space is suddenly shared and the blood rain is brushed to the side. Her eyes open, for the very first and the very last time. "There's two of you." Her eyes fall upon a puddle of blood that reflects the glaring new moon and crescent waning moon shining above my head. "Which one are you right now?" Her calm demeanour sickens me to the core.
"Mousia" I try to say my name.
I look at my own hands, "Mousna" I repeat.
"MOUHNA!" I scream but it doesn't help, with each pronunciation it gets worse and worse.
But my hair glows and glistens until the puddle becomes blinding, feeling myself step back and trip over Cerberus' corpse. Her figure warps and bends the closer she comes to me, "It just isn't fair~" She hums before slamming something into my skull and against the stone ground.
-
"The power of life, death and birth...which do you have?" The grey figure mutters as he recollects my thoughts back to the present.
No longer within the city I once saw..."Wh-" I go to ask, sitting up and noticing a large empty space with nothing but a medium sized cage within it.
"Are we?" I hear his voice emanate from it.
Curiosity getting the better of me I find myself closer to him, but even despite me standing up...I can't quite tell what he looks like.
"We're still within the Underworld, the deepest part to be exact. A place that Hades himself has only ever visited once after heeding the warnings of the one who created this painted world for me, to prison me." He explains.
I look around the room, each coated in different layers of text etched in blood, dents and practically anything the things down here could get their hands on, "You aren't scared?" He asks.
"No."
"Are you sure?" He whispers from my shoulder. Forcing my eyes to lock back into the cage with nothing inside of it.
"Wh-"
"Shhh...they're trying to read." He whispers from another point of the room, but somehow feeling as if a wet finger was briefly placed upon my lips to hush me throughout the sudden confusion. "We've had this conversation a few times already but I'm one of the few who were never given a name out of fear for the power that would bestow upon me."
I walk closer to the cage, feeling as if he's still in there somehow. "Prison after prison they all said something could hold me...but nothing seems like it can quite do the trick for one as particular as I." I hear him smile through his teeth. "If he was the Human, if she was the Vampiric, if they were the Spirit, if he was the Friend, if she was the Banshee...then I'm the Crooked one. They thought Nimue broke it...which was only partially correct, I've taken this twisted appearance as I've devoured upon the aspects that you could name with a very particular word." He feels like...he's all around me. "
He almost silently hums as he cracks his limbs amidst the dim lighting, "Hmmm, Time? Is that it? That reassuring measurement that you organisms need to use prove you existed within this space...something that makes it seem like you actually mean anything to the natural order? For each second, each minute, each hour, each day, each year you can count on one hand. All of it is just another way for me to escape or be somewhere else."
I turn to face away from the cage but a head dangles in front of me. Upside down, twisted, mangled and wrinkled. All of it is unknown apart from his eyes...his pearl white eyes that whisper chills into my throat, "I am the 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘧? And as thanks for freeing me, I don't feel like killing you. I actually feel like helping you." His smile turns rather sadistic as he stands to his full but still curved height as his body revolves around his spine.
"But ho-" I'm cut off by a grotesque bone audibly snapping and echoing throughout the room.
𝘚𝘯𝘢𝘱. His head is thrown to the left, revealing the bone within his throat.
"What if the Zs were turned back into the monster they used to be?" His words flash images, real places where I could have what I want.
𝘚𝘯𝘢𝘱. His head is thrown to the right, covering said bone once again with a bundle of meat.
"What if you never fell down so far within the Underworld?" He asks me, forcing me to blink as I'm placed right in front of Persephone's flower trail that I had fallen past.
𝘚𝘯𝘢𝘱, 𝘚𝘯𝘢𝘱, 𝘚𝘯𝘢𝘱, 𝘚𝘯𝘢𝘱. He giggles relentlessly, making me cover my eyes and ears until it all just...stops.
His body vanishes, leaving behind a glass shard with scratches alongside it, "What if Eden hadn't gotten unlucky...?" His figureless voice whispers from the walls around me.
Bursting the shard into sparkling pieces that are carried off back towards the centre of Tartarus.
Whether or not I was truly there I can't help but hold a hand on my heart for the memory I just relived, bringing back my true cause for continuing my life from that point onward.
"Am I truly Mousai?"