Rating: M
Synopsis: They won't remember her because of her beauty, even with the paintings Artemis creates. [Oneshot]
Class of the Titans is not owned by me. I only own my characters and my Titan War II verse.
Warning(s): coarse language, mention of sexual assault
Includes a same-sex relationship.
Ferocious
"We heard you were a victim.
Stop crouching in the shadows, chewing your hair."
Okay, Ophelia (lines 1-2) by Jeannine Hall Gailey
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-Notes by Murua Sekibo.-
-10/02/13-
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She walks in a path trod harshly.
But
Her steps are light and sharp, quick as a hummingbird.
But
She is no hummingbird.
She is a hawk. Her eyes sharp and everwatchful.
(Everyone looks at her, their eyes drawn to her flesh, to her breasts, to her belly, to her butt, to her legs, to her arms, to her nails, to her cheeks, to her scalp and the hair that falls as a waterfall down her back (she shaves it off), yes, everyone looks at her. But no one ever really watches.)
They look, and their lips grow moist.
Their hands quiver.
Heat pools in their bellies.
And they gasp her imaginary name as her scent hovers past them.
Helena.
Some don't stop at gasping and looking.
She hates those people.
::
She's fifteen and has scars that never stick because nothing will ever mar her skin, that is the Divine Law, and she screams at night because the shadows hold identities that she will hold to her chest forever until she can expose them all for the sick, sick, creatures they are, infected by the Divine Law applied in ancient times to her.
Helen: The Face That Launched A Thousand Ships.
She used to believe that was merely an excuse for war.
She knows better now.
::
She wears sweats that hang off her body, she carries mace and a switchblade, and she keeps her taser ready to fire while her body is trained to kick and punch and slap and bite and scream.
For the past two years she has been working on getting a gun. Father doesn't know. Mother had the Divine Law too. She called it a curse, but even flames wouldn't purge the curse from her body.
::
When she's almost sixteen she screams as a Gryphon lands next to her and a boy they call Charm whose ancestor wasn't so much adored by everyone else as adored by himself takes her hand and starts gushing over her bag. He sympathizes with the plight of being judged on looks alone, but she doesn't really think he sees a huge problem with it so the effect is lessened.
Then they pick up another. The new teenager with pink hair named Artemis sits on a Gryphon and laughs and asks maybe if she could paint her and Helena says 'yes' because already she trusts the teenager with the pink hair and purple nails and paint-stained jeans and underlying ferocity.
The teenager with the pink hair paints like her namesake would wage war. The ferocity stuns Helena for a moment and she asks are you okay?
She sees Artemis crying 14 times when working on a painting because it's so fucking…so…
It deserves her blood.
That's what she says. The painting deserves her blood and her nails and her teeth and she will rip it apart if that is what it takes to make it right.
(The word 'perfect' doesn't exist in her vocabulary.)
So she does exactly that. Paint stains her hands for weeks after – out, spot! out! – and it isn't until Helena asks that she sees the painting Artemis poured everything into.
The colours are brutal. The expressions are resolute in the women and horrified in the man. The bullet holes are dripping with blood and intestinal fluids and his pants are stained because he soiled himself upon seeing the women he decided he deserved, because he decided that he was God's Gift to Women.
No one has ever, does, or will ever, claim that title in truth. They know that. Even Hera said so.
The man is dead and the women are the warriors. And it's horrifying, the blood, the pain, the realization, and the memory. And it's a catharsis for Artemis and, Helena realizes, a catharsis for herself, for all the shit she had to put up with because she was called by Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love and Beauty, the Most Beautiful Mortal in the World ever since she was born. A catharsis because she was, for once in her life, the one dishing out the justice, the one being the physically imposing, the strong one, the one responsible for destroying something. For once, she was the one holding the sword.
Ares is beside himself with joy when Helena advances as quickly as she does in combat training. Soon, she even winds up sparring against Archie and Theresa.
Artemis keeps on painting. She dyes her hair blue, then, with paint in her hair, asks Helena one day if it's alright to kiss her. Helena grins in response and agrees because she's always being fascinated by intense, ferocious people and Artemis is one of the most intense, ferocious people she's ever met. She hasn't met anyone else who has literally torn apart one of her canvases then started painting it from the inside out, screaming as she made brushstrokes across the ripped canvas that would come together to create something so horrifying it was beautiful, or so beautiful it was horrifying. She hasn't met anyone who has been so utterly possessed by a need to do something that nothing was too controversial, nothing was too much, for her to put on canvas.
People scream at Artemis to take down her creations. Artemis grabs the creation, rips it apart, and paints the wall it hangs upon in response, because Artemis has been shut down before, she's been silenced before when she should have never been silenced and now, she refuses to ever be silenced again.
In another lifetime, it would have been a classic story. The model falling in love with the artist. The artist falling in love with the model.
But she's an Italian girl (from Rome) with blue hair and paint chips under her purple nails attached to hands always stained who is found sobbing as she rips apart her canvas more often than not, and she's a black Polish girl with a shaved head who always carries mace, a taser, a switchblade, and a sword because she stood beside the God of War, Ares, as he boasted to one of his rivals, "Helena Moneta is the warrior your mortals would be wise to remember."
Helena knows that no one was ever going to forget her, the Most Beautiful Mortal in the World, but now she is certain that her enemies won't remember her face for its beauty.
No.
Her enemies will remember her face because it will be the last thing they ever see.
::
"You can be a threshing sledge,
new and sharp with many teeth."
Okay, Ophelia (lines 7-8) by Jeannine Hall Gailey
A/N: Obviously, written in a different style from the last Titan War II oneshot. But, I had Helena and Artemis ~feelings~ so this happened.
I have the full poem on my tumblr, just search 'poetry' in my tumblr and you'll find it pretty easily.
If it wasn't obvious…Helena Moneta is descended from Helen of Troy and Artemis Genessa is descended from Artemisia Gentileschi.