I'm waiting for Douglas to come up with something clever.
Come on, I know you can do it.
You've done it before - so many times, so many places, surely, just one more time?
He's not saying anything. He's saying that, sometimes, he doesn't have a plan. Come on, you're cleverer than this.
I'm waiting.
I'm waiting...
It's not going to happen, is it? I bite my lip. Maybe I should say something. It doesn't have to be the whole plan, even, not even part of it, just enough to get the ball rolling. But if I do that, then there'd be the temptation to try again, just one more time... I can't afford to.
Come on, Douglas.
There's more riding on this than just Gertie, or MJN. It's more important than that, and I can't even say anything.
Please-
It's there. It's there! I could sigh with relief - and I do, the moment he starts to speak - because there's a look, a spark in his eyes that tells of an idea, something to work with, work on, a plan, and I don't have to give it all up, not today, maybe next time, maybe next time it will take too long and I'll give in. But not today.
No. Not today.
I'll look on, and I'll roll my eyes, and I'll play along, and today, for today still everything is the same as it ever has been.
Maybe next time. Maybe.
...
My hair isn't even red. It's just a sort of middle-ginger, as though it knows that most of the fire has gone out of me. My eyes, though - blue, and isn't that ironic, blue as I fly and I'm in my element, but blue was always someone else, wasn't it?
Ah, well. Never mind. I am as I've always been. There isn't any changing that.
Sometimes, though, I look at myself in the mirror and wonder at what I've become. There's no self-pity, no disgust, but sometimes, I think vaguely of how different my two lives are - the one I left and the one I'm leading, now.
Other times I look at my reflection and I don't even recognise the person staring back at me.
...
I used to have such a silver tongue, but now I'm reduced to a stuttering wreck.
It's one of the few things I despise about myself as I am now, and worse still it's something that I- well, that doesn't come entirely from the part I seem to have found myself playing.
I spent too long out of touch with the world. I realise now, only by increments, how unaware I am, how jaded my views became only because I did not see things in new lights.
There are times when I find myself without words, and those hurt more than when I choose not to say what I know would have worked.
...
Some of the places we go to are far too hot, and some of them feel more like home than it's comfortable, so I tend to prefer it when we go to the hotter countries.
None of it is quite like being in the air, though - moving so fast that none can find us, soaring through and past the clouds, mortals passing through the realms of the gods.
There's a sort of irony in that sometimes, I think. But then, who am I without a little irony?
I'm the one everyone knows, but no one knows who I am.
My name and my face aren't even connected any more, and in some ways, they aren't even mine, and I'm not sure if I'm happy with that. There are days when I'm fine, and days when I'm not. I'm used to it by now, or at least, I'd like to think I am.
I used to be taller. I remember being taller.
...
Sometimes in the mirror I trace where the scars used to be, and each one that isn't there any more is a reason to stay right where I am.
There, there, and there - my shoulders. Neck. Back.
Nicks and cuts, too numerous to count but I can still remember their places, on hands and arms and elsewhere.
A slash to the arm, that had been long healed-over.
My face. My mouth. My lips, now smooth, only scabbed when it's far too cold and they get chapped.
And then, my hands - once-calloused, now far less so but still with some signs of wear and tear - one stay a man with a van for long if you couldn't lift and carry heavy things, furniture, ornaments, whatever the client wanted, and that caused my hands to lose their smoothness.
Not that it mattered. The real thing worth noticing here was the mark on the thumb. That, I'm pretty sure, I never had before. And I'm all the more proud of it.
...
Zeus, Douglas, really?
No, I don't think that Zeus factors into this at all. Thank you very much.
I should have seen these coming, but I'm far too out of touch.
But Zeus? Really? Why that one?
No, I could never have confused you with any of the thunder gods, Douglas.
You're far, far too much like me.
...
I'm happy with who I am, really. I am.
So maybe next time I'll come up with a plan when Douglas can't think of something clever enough in time.
Maybe next time I'll say something, and I won't stutter, or go red in the face, or blush (I've done things, not with this body, but I'm fairly certain I've done things that would make Douglas blush) or start to cry when someone insults me, and instead of being who they expect me to be... maybe I'll just be myself.
What a shock that would be, hm?
I don't think they'd know what hit them.
I wonder if it would change anything.
Maybe next time.
Maybe.
...
AN: ...
You should probably look up your mythology if you do not know what is going on here.