Chapter 2
Rashel
Rashel woke up with a jolt. Her eyes snapped open and her breath came in short, sharp gasps as she rose into wakefulness. She tried to sit up, but her stomach muscles wouldn't let her. Her arms and legs barely twitched when she attempted to raise them, and when she gave up on moving her limbs and tried to raise her body into the air like she normally could, nothing happened.
Nothing.
It took her about thirty seconds to realise that she was fully alive again, no longer trapped as a spirit in a living world. And shortly after that to understand that she was unable to move, presumably because she hadn't used her muscles since she was nine years old.
At least she could blink, although the meagre light that left the room in shadows was burning her eyes. She was in pain, and trapped inside a body that wouldn't move. It was like a nightmare, only she was awake for it. She had always thought that being conscious and unable to communicate, walking through life unseen and unheard, was the worst thing that could happen to a person, but this… though similar, it was a hundred times worse. At least she had been able to move around as a spirit. Now she was just… trapped.
No, that was wrong, she acknowledged. She could feel her facial muscles bunching and contracting as she went through her different emotions. She could frown, and widen her eyes, and squint, and she even thought she could smile a bit.
Yes. First things first. She was going to learn to smile.
It couldn't be too hard. She had done it many times as an incorporeal being, and as a child before her abduction. It came to most people as naturally as breathing. She would just have to think of something funny if she was to get this body working again.
Of course, being put on the spot, she couldn't come up with anything. She just tried to pull lots of different faces until all of her muscles were working again.
With her face, at least, it wasn't like there was anything wrong with them – she'd just forgotten how to use them. She lost track of time as she wrinkled her nose and furrowed her forehead again and again until it became practically natural.
Light began to creep into the room as she moved on to voice, and it came as a shock to her that it was neither hoarse nor difficult to use. Either she had used it on many occasions in her dreaming, or voice boxes just didn't get disused. She wasn't sure which, and wasn't sure she wanted to know.
"What on earth are you doing?" demanded a smooth, cultured voice just as she finished a length of 'mememememememes,' still testing out her voice.
"I don't see that it's any concern of yours," she retorted, wishing she'd gotten on to her neck muscles so she could look sideways and see who she was talking to. "Who are you? Where am I?"
"I don't see that it's any concern of yours," he mimicked childishly.
"I disagree. Where I am is rather relevant to me, don't you think?"
Apollo
Every bit as stubborn and annoying as he had known she would be. And she hadn't even looked over to acknowledge his presence. How dare she ignore the presence of a god?
"No," he responded tightly, knowing full well that he was wrong but unwell to admit it. The woman raised her eyebrows but still didn't look at him. Apollo started to lose patience with her. "Sit up so that we can have a decent conversation, or I may be forced to take action against you. Which will not be pleasant."
"I can't," said the treacherous descendent of Cassandra.
By the Underworld, she was trying his patience! She was lying in his bed, what did she have to complain about? Thousands of women over the centuries would have killed to be where she was right now, and she refused a simple, reasonable request? He strode over to her and tore the covers off of her. Still she didn't react, except for a small sigh.
"What is your problem?" he demanded, his accent thickening so that a bit of Greek leaked in as he got more and more frustrated.
"I can't actually move," the woman said reasonably, exasperation in her voice. "I've been unconscious for… fifteen years? You're lucky I can talk. I spent the last few hours re-learning how to manipulate my own face."
Apollo snapped his fingers impatiently. "There. No longer a problem." He had healed the muscle wastage with a thought and a short burst of magic, and although he hadn't restored her to peak fitness, she should at least be able to sit up and walk around. He wasn't going to go too far out of his way to be nice.
Hey, he could be as petty as the next god.
"Now let's see if I can remember how to use these things," the woman muttered under her breath. "Arms? One, two, going up and down. So far, so good."
She used said arms to push herself up from the bed, then swung around so that her legs hung off the edge of the bed. She smiled up at Apollo with such grateful happiness that for a second he forgot that he was in the middle of hating her guts.
"Thank you so much!" she said, standing up, still with the insanely happy look on her face. She tottered forwards and launched herself at Apollo in a huge hug that left him bewildered. He stood stiffly with her arms around him, taken aback by such affection.
"Oh. Not a huggy person?" She released her grip on him and stepped back. "Sorry. I'm going to have to get used to this whole 'normal life' thing all over again. But I'm really grateful for your healing me." Then, suddenly, she became aware of the fact that that wasn't a normal occurrence. "You're a god, aren't you?"
Rashel
She didn't know where the thought had come from, and nothing like it had happened since she had been kidnapped. It wasn't as if it was a normal thought, either. Most people would not think 'I've been healed, he must be a god.' It would be slightly more ordinary to think she was dreaming, or that he was a human with magical powers, but no, she had this conviction that he was a god.
Maybe when she had woken up, the two parts of her consciousness had recollided and she was psychic once again. On the other hand, it could just be that the man in front of her was the fittest she had seen in all her earth-wandering years. He looked like a god, with his perfectly chiselled features and a body that was essentially every woman's dream of perfection.
He was also wearing a toga.
"Yes," he said in clipped tones. He wasn't being particularly open, or even nice, about anything. Not that she had much experience with what was rude and what wasn't, but surely he could be a little less… abrupt?
"So, let's see, who could you be?" This was going to be fun. If he didn't want to come outright and tell her, she'd just go through a list of every god she knew the name of. And there were a lot of them. She'd been fascinated by mythology, and after forcing herself to go to school until she was eighteen (whether anyone knew she was there or not), she'd visited a few universities and sat in on some lectures.
"So, the toga would indicate… Greek or Roman. Maybe Mesopotamian, or Phoenician? No, not Mesopotamian, and I can't remember what the Phoenicians used to wear. I think they wore togas too, and weren't they similar to the Greeks as well? They're not remembered as much now, but-"
"I'm not Phoenician," he growled, toga changing into a business suit.
Ooh, tetchy! "With that silver tongue of yours, you could so be Adonis," she muttered sarcastically. "Okay, let's go for Greek or Roman. But since they're so often the same thing, I prefer Greek and I'll go by that. I'm thinking, not Ares because you don't look like the type to steal another man's wife. Not that you couldn't," she added quickly, to salve his pride, "but I just don't think you would. Zeus is a definite no-no, for the same reason. And also I tend to think of him as a more distinguished looking man, late forties, salt-and-pepper hair. You don't look that much older than thirty, and you're blond."
She looked the man up and down, trying to place him. She wasn't even aware of him as a person anymore, she just wanted to solve the puzzle he presented. The confused look in his eyes went unnoticed. "Whoever heard of a blond Greek? But anyway. You're not Poseidon, because you're not, well, blue enough. Everything has a colour that I associate with it, you know, and to look at you you're more of a red-and-gold. Which rules out Hades, too. You don't look… crazy enough to be a wind. Maybe Achilles…"
The god twitched.
"Or maybe not. Ooh, what about Helios? Wait, I've got it. You're Apollo, aren't you? Both Apollo and Helios are red and gold, but it's day time so if you were really Helios you'd be driving the sun across the sky. Hah! Hello, Apollo."
"Hello, Rashel."
So talkative.
But suddenly she was a little more nervous at having a powerful, immortal deity in the same room as her, and her sarcasm dried up. She was all too aware of the fact that she was no longer safe from harm, because she had a physical body. Not that it wasn't nice to be able to actually touch things, but it did make her infinitely more vulnerable.
"Erm… maybe I can get out of here," she said, trying not to show that she was actually terrified witless. Apollo, if that's who he was since he hadn't actually verified her statement, was unmoved. He didn't even blink which was, to be honest, quite unnerving.
"Yeah, I'll definitely be going," Rashel muttered, only just realising that she wasn't dressed in proper clothes. Normally they materialised on her body whenever she concentrated hard, but now she was a physical being and that couldn't happen anymore.
She looked down at herself and grimaced when she saw her clothes. She was essentially dressed in what looked like a hospital robe, only too small. Most hospital robes were absolutely huge, especially on people her size.
Along with the whole too-small thing, she gradually noticed that it was completely open at the back, only tied together around her neck. So it was gaping, too small, and she was in the company of a fit god whose identity and conscience had yet to be confirmed. She had also spent the past ten minutes potentially annoying the hell out of him. Dear god, this day was getting worse and worse.
After they had stared at each other for about ten seconds, Rashel slightly preoccupied by the idea that if she turned around he'd see her bare buttocks. She also couldn't get it out of her head that he looked really good in that business suit.
Finally, she shook herself out of her daydream. "Hey, about that leaving thing. Can I have some clothes to go with it?"
"You don't own any clothes," said the god. Rashel tried not to point out that that was a given and was also why she had been asking him for clothes. She was trying her best not to annoy him so that she wouldn't end up as a smear on the nice hardwood flooring. It wasn't wise to irritate someone capable of extinguishing your life with a single thought.
Actually, to hell with that. Sure, it might not be wise, but whatever happened to fun? She finally had a voice that people could hear and she was going to use it.
"I know I don't. So I was wondering if you could make them appear for me. Because I equally have no money, probably no birth certificate, and no qualifications to help me get a job. Clothes would be a helpful start towards any of those things. Please."
Apollo looked at her like she was a cockroach.
"Look, I know you're more than half gay and everything, so you're not going to rape me, but looking at me like that doesn't give me confidence that murder is out of the question. Can you either let me go or tell me what's going on, because otherwise I might do something interesting – in a bad way – like develop histrionic personality disorder, or maybe throw a tantrum."
Still no comment from mad, bad and dangerous.
"Histrionic personality disorder means I might get over-emotional and seek attention. Oh right, I remember, it might also lead me to throw myself at you in an attempt to seduce you. Let's not go there. So, clothing?"
The god vanished, looking a little wild about the eyes. Finally, she'd got to him.
She was also now alone in a strange new world that she didn't understand and couldn't protect herself in. Yay for her. On top of which, her voice's first outing into the real world had been an overwhelming failure.
But, not one to dwell on what had happened, she walked over to the huge wardrobe in the corner, bent over, and started rummaging through various items of male clothing to find something that might fit, or at least suffice until she could get something to wear of her own.
