notes: kronoswins!au, octavian/rachel, violent undertones

"sorry about the blood in your mouth.
i wish it was mine.
i couldn't get the boy to kill me,
but i wore his jacket for the longest time."
— richard siken

If she could kill him she would kill him without looking back. If it was possible, killing him. It's not. He's immortal. Oh, she hates him. She wants blood, pouring, and that monster — not a man, he's not a man — dead at her feet.

Rachel Elizabeth Dare wishes she was the same person she once was. She misses the girl who saw the world of mythology and loved it, the innocent teenager who fell in love with a boy as fluid as the ocean and just as unattainable. She once was a girl who saw the world and saw opportunities. She was blessed, she knows now, ever even having that chance. Now she has nothing but a fiery spirit and her sight, her knowledge of the future. She's valuable, a diamond in the rough. For everyone else is dirt and she is shining. Not with hope — hope is as lost as the god-spawn that now reign from the heavens — but with her own self. She is the Oracle of Delphi and nobody can take that away from her. Not the Lord of Time, sitting on his throne of bones. Not Fate, not yet.

She is not filthy. She is not stupid. She's mortal but resilient and she wants ichor spilling from his veins. He doesn't know, of course, for she's a coward and doesn't breathe it in front of him. She stays instead in the shadows, smiling at him and throwing herself at his feet. Worshipping him like a king. Thinking of him like a snake.

He needs an Oracle. He needs his vision of the future. He keeps her alive. It's now that her sight keeps her out of her own shrine — now that she actually wishes she was gone.

Oh well. She will make the best of her life. It's not she has anything left she can lose.

She does have something she can lose. The Roman augur, the only other person in the mortal realm who can see the future. A man, a boy, who actually understands her. The problem lies with the fact that his loyalty is for Kronos first, her second. She thinks.

Octavian is as power-hungry as one can expect, with a name that itself gives him a reputation of being unstoppable when he wants influence. They work together, telling the Lord the future. Both of them lie. The difference is that Rachel does it because she hates him. Octavian does it because he wants power over him.

They meet at night and talk about the past, the present, and the future. And no moves are made, no hidden smiles are given, no forgotten kisses are traded, no hands are held — but they both just know that they belong together. And they can belong together, for they both have power with Kronos as a ruler. But they also know that he will not stay. So they wait.

Octavian is a terrible person. Loving someone does not make them a good person. He is Kronos' right hand man and he has a voice like iron and so many die at his behest. Children. Mortals. Her people. She should hate him. And she does. But she wouldn't mind running away with him at the same time. Treacherous heart.

So, Rachel has a boy who is a murderer as the only person in her life left she can lose. I never should have chosen a life as the Oracle of Delphi. And she almost didn't, she remembers. She left in the middle of the last battle of the war, flying towards Camp Half-Blood, certain Percy and Annabeth would prevail. Startled when she was captured and told they were dead. Her parents were dead. All disloyal demigods were dead. Nobody alive but her, some rogue Greeks, and half of a Roman legion she hadn't even known existed. With a blond oratorical speaker rallying them, making them support a Titan in the body of a man who had withered away. A twisted tale. Something that history will get wrong.

She'll be written as a hero, she promises herself. She lies.

Three years later when Kronos is overthrown (this she'd known; Octavian had known as well. He'd known that it would be his sword that would send the Lord of Time back into Tartarus) he kisses her for the first time. And she kisses back, not knowing what she should feel. Kronos is gone, but she doesn't see Octavian as much different from him.

Mortals still die. He still remains a terror. He still rules by fear. He's not a good person. And Rachel hates what he does but she still sits besides him in council and kisses him at night. She doesn't have a choice. She justifies herself against her mind. But he notices.

"What do you want?" it's a soft growl out of his mouth, and it comes across as demeaning, a little, but she knows better.

"I want the past, Octavian. What's right." She gestures around, "This is not right."

"Get rid of those stupid morals. This is what the world should be. With the people who deserve power in power. We are miracles, Rachel."

She laughs a little. "I'm nothing special. I'm just a regular mortal that made a choice and joined this mythological world. If I hadn't, you'd have killed me already."

He grasps her shoulders. "I would never hurt you," he says.

"I wish I could believe that," she replies, "but I don't."

More people die. Octavian grows stronger. She thinks she's lost the only thing she could lose.

She says she loves him and maybe she does. Maybe. She doesn't really know what love is anymore. She hates what he does and why he does it, but she loves him. She still smiles but she means it less.

What would Percy do? She wonders, and after that, she knows.

If she could kill him she would kill him without looking back. If it was possible, killing him. It's not. He's immortal. Oh, she hates him. She wants blood, pouring, and that monster — not a man, he's not a man — dead at her feet.

Maybe she has made this new monster. Maybe not. But he is one. So she does what she must do.

okay: this is only posted because it's due — i'm (probably) going to rewrite it and post it again. i couldn't use the words "they're, their, there, hear, here, your, you're, then, than, two, to, and too" and that was a little (note: large) problem. i am killing vicky for that stupid prompt. anyways, this'll be rewritten, probably.

querencia quarter quell: my prompts - mistakes with homophones, formatting errors, errors in representing media, flat angst, and plagiarism. word count of story: 1076.

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— dee